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Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII, by Various

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Title: The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII
       Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. In Twenty
       Volumes
       

Author: Various

Release Date: June 10, 2004 [EBook #12573]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GERMAN CLASSICS, VOL. VIII ***




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VOLUME VIII


BERTHOLD AUERBACH

JEREMIAS GOTTHELF

FRITZ REUTER

ADALBERT STIFTER

WILHELM HEINRICH RIEHL




#THE GERMAN CLASSICS#

Masterpieces of German Literature



TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH


1914


CONTRIBUTORS AND TRANSLATORS



VOLUME VIII




CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII


The Novel of Provincial Life. By Edwin C. Roedder


BERTHOLD AUERBACH

Little Barefoot. Translated by H.W. Dulcken; revised and abridged by
Paul Bernard Thomas


JEREMIAS GOTTHELF

Uli, The Farmhand. Translations and Synopses by Bayard Quincy Morgan


FRITZ REUTER

The Bräsig Episodes from _Ut mine Stromtid_. Translated by M.W.
Macdowall; edited and abridged by Edmund von Mach

ADALBERT STIFTER

Rock Crystal. Translated by Lee M. Hollander


WILHELM HEINRICH RIEHL

Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl. By Otto Heller

Field and Forest. Translated by Frances H. King

The Eye for Natural Scenery. Translated by Frances H. King

The Musical Ear. Translated by Frances H. King

The Struggle of the Rococo with the Pigtail. Translated by Frances H.
King

       *       *       *       *




ILLUSTRATIONS--VOLUME VIII


The Abduction of Prometheus. By Max Klinger

Berthold Auerbach. By Hans Meyer

Two Coffins were carried away from the little House. By Benjamin Vautier

Amrei briskly brought her Pitcher filled with Water. By Benjamin Vautier

Tears fell upon the Paternal Coat. By Benjamin Vautier

He gave her his Hand for the Last Time. By Benjamin Vautier

While she was milking John asked her all kinds of Questions. By Benjamin
Vautier

Jeremias Gotthelf

A New Citizen. By Benjamin Vautier

The Bath. By Benjamin Vautier

In Ambush. By Benjamin Vautier

First Dancing Lessons. By Benjamin Vautier

Fritz Reuter. By Wulff

Bible Lesson. By Benjamin Vautier

Between Dances. By Benjamin Vautier

The Bridal Pair at the Civil Marriage Office. By Benjamin Vautier

Adalbert Stifter. By Daffinger

A Mountain Scene. By H. Reifferscheid

Leavetaking of the Bridal Pair. By Benjamin Vautier

The Barber Shop. By Benjamin Vautier

Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl

An Official Dinner in the Country. By Benjamin Vautier

At the Sick Bed. By Benjamin Vautier

A Village Funeral. By Benjamin Vautier

       *       *       *       *




EDITOR'S NOTE


This volume, containing chiefly masterpieces of the Novel of Provincial
Life, is illustrated by the principal works of one of the foremost
painters of German peasant life, Benjamin Vautier. These picture's have
been so arranged as to bring out in natural succession typical
situations in the career of an individual from the cradle to the grave.
In order not to interrupt this succession, Auerbach's _Little Barefoot_,
likewise illustrated by Vautier, has been placed before Gotthelf's _Uli,
The Farmhand_, although Gotthelf, and not Auerbach, is to be considered
as the real founder of the German village story.

The frontispiece, Karl Spitzweg's _Garret Window_, introduces a master
of German genre painting who in a later volume will be more fully
represented.

KUNO FRANCKE.

       *       *       *       *




THE NOVEL OF PROVINCIAL LIFE


By EDWIN C. ROEDDER, PH.D.

Associate Professor of German Philology, University of Wisconsin

To Rousseau belongs the credit of having given, in his passionate cry
"Back to Nature!" the classic expression to the consciousness that all
the refinements of civilization do not constitute life in its truest
sense. The sentiment itself is thousands of years old. It had inspired
the idyls of Theocritus in the midst of the magnificence and luxury of
the courts of Alexandria and Syracuse. It reëchoed through the pages of
Virgil's bucolic poetry. It made itself heard, howsoever faintly, in the
artificiality and sham of the pastoral plays from the sixteenth to the
eighteenth century. And it was but logical that this sentiment should
seek its most adequate and definitive expression in a portrayal of all
phases of the life and fate of those who, as the tillers of the soil,
had ever remained nearer to Mother Earth than the rest of humankind.

Not suddenly, then, did rural poetry rise into being; but while its
origin harks back to remote antiquity it has found its final form only
during the last century. In this its last, as well as its most vigorous,
offshoot, it presents itself as the village story--as we shall term it
for brevity's sake--which has won a permanent place in literature by the
side of its older brothers and sisters, and has even entirely driven out
the fanciful pastoral or village idyl of old.

The village story was bound to come in the nineteenth century, even if
there had been no beginnings of it in earlier times, and even if it did
not correspond to a deep-rooted general sentiment. The eighteenth
century had allowed the Third Estate to gain a firm foothold in the
domain of dignified letters; the catholicity of the nineteenth admitted
the laborer and the proletarian. It would have been passing strange if
the rustic alone had been denied the privilege. An especially hearty
welcome was accorded to the writings of the first representatives of the
new species. Internationalism, due to increased traffic, advanced with
unparalleled strides in the third and fourth decades. The seclusion of
rural life seemed to remain the quiet and unshakable realm of
patriarchal virtue and venerable tradition. The political skies were
overcast with the thunder clouds of approaching revolutions; France had
just passed through another violent upheaval. Village conditions seemed
to offer a veritable haven of refuge. The pristine artlessness of the
peasant's intellectual, moral, and emotional life furnished a wholesome
antidote to the morbid hyperculture of dying romanticism, the
controversies and polemics of Young Germany, and the self-adulation of
the society of the salons. Neither could the exotic, ethnographic, and
adventure narratives in the manner of Sealsfield, at first
enthusiastically received, satisfy the taste of the reading public for
any length of time--at best, these novels supplanted one fashion by
another, if, indeed, they did not drive out Satan by means of Beelzebub.
And was it wise to roam so far afield when the real good was so close at
hand? Why cross oceans when the land of promise lay right before one's
doors? All that was needed was the poet discoverer.

The Columbus of this new world shared the fate of the great Genoese in
more than one respect. Like him, he set out in quest of shores that he
was destined never to reach. Like him, he discovered, or rather
rediscovered, a new land. Like him, he so far outstripped his
forerunners that they sank into oblivion. Like Columbus, who died
without knowing that he had not reached India, the land of his dreams,
but found a new world, he may have departed from this life in the belief
that he had been a measurably successful social reformer when he had
proved to be a great epic poet. Like Columbus, he was succeeded by his
Amerigo Vespucci, after whom his discovery was named. The Columbus of
the village story is the Swiss clergyman Albert Bitzius, better known by
his assumed name as Jeremias Gotthelf; the Amerigo Vespucci is his
contemporary Berthold Auerbach.

The choice of his _nom de guerre_ is significant of Jeremias Gotthelf's
literary activity. He regarded himself as the prophet wailing the misery
of his people, who could be delivered only through the aid of the
Almighty. It never occurred to him to strive for literary fame. He
considered himself as a teacher and preacher purely and simply; in a
measure, as the successor of Pestalozzi, who, in his _Lienhard und
Gertrud_ (1781-1789), had created a sort of pedagogical classic for the
humbler ranks of society; and if there be such a thing in Gotthelf's
make-up as literary influence, it must have emanated from the sage of
Burgdorf and Yverdun. To some extent also Johann Peter Hebel
(1760-1826), justly famed for his Alemannian dialect poems, may have
served him as a model, for Hebel followed an avowedly educational
purpose in the popular tales of his _Schatzkästlein des rheinischen
Hausfreunds_ ("Treasure Box of the Rhenish Crony"), of which it has been
said that they outweigh tons of novels.

Gotthelf's intention was twofold: to champion the cause of the rustic
yeomanry in the threatening of its peculiar existence--for the radical
spirit of the times was already seizing and preying upon the hallowed
customs of the peasantry's life--and to fight against certain inveterate
vices of the rural population itself that seemed to be indigenous to the
soil. As the first great social writer of the German tongue, he is not
content to make the rich answerable for existing conditions, but labors
with all earnestness to educate the lower classes toward self-help. At
first he appeared as an uncommonly energetic, conservative, polemic
author in whose views the religious, basis of life and genuine moral
worth coincided with the traditional character of the country yeomanry.
A more thorough examination revealed to his readers an original epic
talent of stupendous powers. He was indeed eminently fitted to be an
educator and reformer among his flock by his own nobility of character,
his keen knowledge and sane judgment of the people's real needs and
wants, his warm feeling, and his unexcelled insight into the peasant's
inner life. Beyond that, however, he was gifted with exuberant poetic
imagination and creative power, with an intuitive knowledge of the
subtlest workings of the emotional life, and a veritable genius for
finding the critical moments in an individual existence.

So it came about that the poet triumphed over the social reformer, in
spite of himself; and while in his own parish, at Lützelflüh in the
Canton of Berne--where he was installed as minister of the Gospel in
1832 after having spent some time there as a vicar--he is remembered to
this day for his self-sacrificing activity in every walk of life, the
world at large knows him only as one of the great prose writers of
Germany in the nineteenth century. His first work, _Bauernspiegel_ ("The
Peasants' Mirror"), was published in 1836, when he was thirty-nine years
old. From that time on until his death in 1854, his productivity was
most marvelous. _The Peasants' Mirror_ is the first village story that
deserves the name; here, for the first time, the world of the peasant
was presented as a distinct world by itself.[1] It is at the same time
one of the earliest, as well as the most splendid, products of realistic
art; and, considered in connection with his later writings, must be
regarded as his creed and program. For the motives of the several
chapters reappear later, worked out into complete books, and thus both
_Uli der Knecht_ ("Uli, the Farmhand," 1841) and _Uli der Pächter_
("Uli, the Tenant," 1849) are foreshadowed here.

As a literary artist Gotthelf shows barely any progress in his whole
career, and intentionally so. Few writers of note have been so perfectly
indifferent to matters of form. The same Gottfried Keller who calls
Gotthelf "without exception the greatest epic genius that has lived in a
long time, or perhaps will live for a long time to come," characterizes
him thus as to his style: "With his strong, sharp spade he will dig out
a large piece of soil, load it on his literary wheelbarrow, and to the
accompaniment of strong language upset it before our feet; good garden
soil, grass, flowers and weeds, manure and stones, precious gold coins
and old shoes, fragments of crockery and bones--they all come to light
and mingle their sweet and foul smells in peaceful harmony." His
adherence to the principle _Naturalia non sunt turpia_ is indeed so
strict that at times a sensitive reader is tempted to hold his nose. It
is to be regretted that so great a genius in his outspoken preference
for all that is characteristic should have been so partial to the rude,
the crude, and the brutal. For Gotthelf's literary influence--which, to
be sure, did not make itself felt at once--has misled many less original
writers to consider these qualities as essential to naturalistic style.

Very largely in consequence of his indifference to form and the
naturalistic tendencies mentioned--for to all intents and purposes
Gotthelf must be regarded as the precursor of naturalism--the Swiss
writer did not gain immediate recognition in the world of letters, and
the credit rightfully belonging to him fell, as already mentioned, to
Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882), a native of the village of Nordstetten in
the Württemberg portion of the Black Forest. From 1843-1853 Auerbach
published his _Black Forest Village Stories_, which at once became the
delight of the reading public. Auerbach himself claimed the distinction
of being the originator of this new species of narrative--an honor
which was also claimed by Alexander Weill, because of his _Sittengemälde
aus dem Elsass_ ("Genre Paintings from Alsace," 1843). While Gotthelf
had written only for his peasants, without any regard for others,
Auerbach wrote for the same general readers of fiction as the then
fashionable writers did. So far as his popularity among the readers of
the times and his influence on other authors are concerned, Auerbach has
a certain right to the coveted title, for a whole school of village
novelists followed at his heels; and his name must remain inseparably
connected with the history of the novel of provincial life. The
impression his stories made everywhere was so strong as to beggar
description. They afforded the genuine delight that we get from
murmuring brooks and flowering meadows--although the racy smell of the
soil that is wafted toward us from the pages of Gotthelf's writings is
no doubt more wholesome for a greater length of time. Auerbach has often
been charged with idealizing his peasants too much. It must be admitted
that his method and style are idealistic, but, at least in his best
works, no more so than is compatible with the demands of artistic
presentation. He does not, like Gotthelf, delight in painting a face
with all its wrinkles, warts, and freckles, but works more like the
portrait painter who will remove unsightly blemishes by retouching the
picture without in any way sacrificing its lifelike character. When
occasion demands he also shows himself capable of handling thoroughly
tragic themes with pronounced success. In his later years, it is true,
he fell into mannerism, overemphasized his inclination toward
didacticism and sententiousness, and allowed the philosopher to run away
with the poet by making his peasant folk think and speak as though they
were adepts in the system of Spinoza, with which Auerbach himself,
being of Jewish birth and having been educated to be a rabbi, was
intimately familiar. On the whole, however, the lasting impression we
obtain from Auerbach's literary work remains a very pleasant one--that
of a rich and characteristic life, sound to the core, vigorous and
buoyant.

Not as a writer of village stories--for in the portrayal of the rustic
population, as such, he was not concerned--but in his basic purpose of
holding up nature, pure and holy, as an ideal, Adalbert Stifter
(1805-1868), an Austrian, must be assigned a place of honor in this
group. A more incisive contrast to the general turbulence of the forties
could hardly be imagined than is found in the nature descriptions and
idyls of this quietist, who "from the madding crowd's ignoble strife"
sought refuge in the stillness of the country and among people to whom
such outward peace is a physical necessity. His feeling for nature,
especially for her minutest and seemingly most insignificant phenomena,
is closely akin to religion; there is an infinite charm in his
description of the mysterious life of apparently lifeless objects; he
renders all the sensuous impressions so masterfully that the reader
often has the feeling of a physical experience; and it is but natural
that up to his thirty-fifth year, before he discovered his literary
talent, he had dreamed of being a landscape painter. Hebbel's epigram,
"Know ye why ye are such past masters in painting beetles and
buttercups? 'Tis because ye know not man; 'tis because ye see not the
stars," utterly fails to do justice to Stifter's poetic individuality.
But in avoiding the great tempests and serious conflicts of the human
heart he obeyed a healthy instinct of his artistic genius, choosing to
retain undisputed mastery in his own field.

It is, of course, an impossibility to treat adequately, in the remainder
of the space at our disposal, the poetic and general literary merit of
Fritz Reuter (1810-1874), the great regenerator and rejuvenator of Low
German as a literary language. His lasting merit in the field of the
village story is that by his exclusive use of dialect he threw an
effective safeguard around the naturalness of the emotional life of his
characters, and through this ingenious device will for all time to come
serve as a model to writers in this particular domain. For dialectic
utterance does not admit of any super-exaltation of sentiment; at any
rate, it helps to detect such at first glance. But there are other
features no less meritorious in his stories of rural life, chief of
which is that unique blending of seriousness and humor that makes us
laugh and cry at the same time. With his wise and kind heart, with his
deep sympathy for all human suffering, with the smile of understanding
for everything truly human, also for all the limitations and follies of
human nature, Reuter has worthily taken his place by the side of his
model, Charles Dickens. It is questionable whether even Dickens ever
created a character equal to the fine and excellent Uncle Bräsig, who,
in the opinion of competent critics, is the most successful humorous
figure in all German literature. Bräsig is certainly a masterpiece of
psychology; as remote from any mere comic effect, despite his
idiosyncrasies, as from maudlin sentimentality; an impersonation of
sturdy manhood and a victor in life's battles, no less than his creator,
who, although he had lost seven of the most precious years of his life
in unjust imprisonment and even had been under sentence of death for a
crime of which he knew himself to be absolutely innocent, had not
allowed his fate to make him a pessimist. Nor does the central theme and
idea of his masterpiece _Ut mine Stromtid_ ("From my Roaming Days,"
1862), in its strength and beauty, deserve less praise than the
character delineation. Four years previous, in _Kein Hüsung_ ("Homeless
") the author had raised a bitter cry of distress over the social
injustice and the deceit and arrogance of the ruling classes. In spite
of a ray of sunshine at the end, the treatment was essentially tragic.
Now he has found a harmonious solution of the problem; the true
nobility of human nature triumphs over all social distinctions;
aristocracy of birth and yeomanry are forever united. Thus the marriage
of Louise Havermann with Franz von Rambow both symbolizes the fusion of
opposing social forces and exemplifies the lofty teaching of
Gotthelf--"The light that is to illumine our fatherland must have its
birth at a fireside." With his gospel of true humanity the North German
poet supplements and brings to its full fruition the religious austerity
of the doctrines and precepts of Jeremias Gotthelf, the preacher on the
Alpine heights of Switzerland.

       *       *       *       *




BERTHOLD AUERBACH



LITTLE BAREFOOT[2] (1856)


A TALE OF VILLAGE LIFE

TRANSLATED BY H.W. DULCKEN, PH.D. REVISED AND ABRIDGED BY PAUL BERNARD
THOMAS


CHAPTER I

THE CHILDREN KNOCK AT THE DOOR


Early in the morning through the autumnal mist two children of six or
seven years are wending their way, hand in hand, along the garden-paths
outside the village. The girl, evidently the elder of the two, carries a
slate, school-books, and writing materials under her arm; the boy has a
similar equipment, which he carries in an open gray linen bag slung
across his shoulder. The girl wears a cap of white twill, that reaches
almost to her forehead, and from beneath it the outline of her broad
brow stands forth prominently; the boy's head is bare. Only one child's
step is heard, for while the boy has strong shoes on, the girl is
barefoot. Wherever the path is broad enough, the children walk side by
side, but where the space between the hedges is too narrow for this, the
girl walks ahead.

[Illustration: BERTHOLD AUERBACH Hans Meyer]

The white hoar frost has covered the faded leaves of the bushes, and the
haws and berries; and the flips especially, standing upright on their
bare stems, seem coated with silver. The sparrows in the hedges
twitter and fly away in restless groups at the children's approach; then
they settle down not far off, only to go whirring up again, till at last
they flutter into a garden and alight in an apple-tree with such force
that the leaves come showering down. A magpie flies up suddenly from the
path and shoots across to the large pear-tree, where some ravens are
perched in silence. The magpie must have told them something, for the
ravens fly up and circle round the tree; one old fellow perches himself
on the waving crown, while the others find good posts of observation on
the branches below. They, too, are doubtless curious to know why the
children, with their school things, are following the wrong path and
going out of the village; one raven, indeed, flies out as a scout and
perches on a stunted willow by the pond. The children, however, go
quietly on their way till, by the alders beside the pond, they come upon
the high-road, which they cross to reach a humble house standing on the
farther side. The house is locked up, and the children stand at the door
and knock gently. The girl cries bravely: "Father! mother!"--and the boy
timidly repeats it after her: "Father! mother!" Then the girl takes hold
of the frost-covered latch and presses it, at first gently, and listens;
the boards of the door creak, but there is no other result. And now she
ventures to rattle the latch up and down vigorously, but the sounds die
away in the empty vestibule--no human voice answers. The boy then
presses his mouth to a crack in the door and cries: "Father! mother!" He
looks up inquiringly at his sister--his breath on the door has also
turned to hoar frost.

From the village, lying in a shroud of mist, come the measured sounds of
the thresher's flail, now in sudden volleys, now slowly and with a
dragging cadence, now in sharp, crackling bursts, and now again with a
dull and hollow beat. Sometimes there is the noise of one flail only,
but presently others have joined in on all sides. The children stand
still and seem lost. Finally they stop knocking and calling, and sit
down on some uprooted tree-stumps. The latter lie in a heap around the
trunk of a mountain-ash which stands beside the house, and which is now
radiant with its red berries. The children's eyes are again turned
toward the door-but it is still locked.

"Father got those out of the Mossbrook Wood," said the girl, pointing to
the stumps; and she added with a precocious look: "They give out lots
of heat, and are worth quite a little; for there is a good deal of resin
in them, and that burns like a torch. But chopping them brings in the
most money."

"If I were already grown up," replied the boy, "I'd take father's big
ax, and the beechwood mallet, and the two iron wedges, and the ash wedge
and break it all up as if it were glass. And then I'd make a fine,
pointed heap of it like the charcoal-burner, Mathew, makes in the woods;
and when father comes home, how pleased he'll be! But you must not tell
him who did it!" the boy concluded, raising a warning finger at his
sister.

She seemed to have a dawning suspicion that it was useless to wait there
for their father and mother, for she looked up at her brother very
sadly. When her glance fell on his shoes, she said:

"Then you must have father's boots, too. But come, we will play ducks
and drakes-you shall see that I can throw farther than you!"

As they walked away, the girl said:

"I'll give you a riddle to guess: What wood will warm you without your
burning it?"

"The schoolmaster's ruler, when you get the spatters," answered the boy.

"No, that's not what I mean: The wood that you chop makes you warm
without your burning it." And pausing by the hedge, she asked again:

"On a stick he has his head, And his jacket it is red, And filled with
stone is he--Now who may he be?"

The boy bethought himself very gravely, and cried "Stop! You mustn't
tell me what it is!--Why, its a hip!"

The girl nodded assentingly, and made a face as if this were the first
time she had ever given him the riddle to guess; as a matter of fact,
however, she had given it to him very often, and had used it many times
to cheer him up.

The sun had dispersed the mist, and the little valley stood in
glittering sheen, as the children turned away to the pond to skim flat
stones on the water. As they passed the house the girl pressed the latch
once more; but again the door did not open, nor was anything to be seen
at the window. And now the children played merrily beside the pond, and
the girl seemed quite content that her brother should be the more clever
at the sport, and that he should boast of it and grow quite excited over
it; indeed, she manifestly tried to be less clever at it, than she
really was, for the stones she threw almost always plumped down to the
bottom as soon as they struck the water--for which she got properly
laughed at by her companion. In the excitement of the sport the children
quite forgot where they were and why they had come there--and yet it was
a strange and sorrowful occasion.

In the house, which was now so tightly locked up, there had lived, but a
short time before, one Josenhans, with his wife and their two children,
Amrei (Anna Marie) and Damie (Damien). The father was a woodcutter in
the forest, and was, moreover, an adept at various kinds of work; the
house, which was in a dilapidated state when he bought it, he had
himself repaired and reroofed, and in the autumn he was going to
whitewash it inside--the lime was already lying prepared in the trench,
covered with withered branches. His wife was one of the best
day-laboring women in the village--ready for anything, day and night, in
weal and in woe; for she had trained her children, especially Amrei, to
manage for themselves at an early age. Industry and frugal contentment
made the house one of the happiest in the village. Then came a deadly
sickness which snatched away the mother, and the following evening, the
father; and a few days later two coffins were carried away from the
little house. The children had been taken immediately into the next
house, to "Coaly Mathew," and they did not know of their parents' death
until they were dressed in their Sunday clothes to follow the bodies.

Josenhans and his wife had no near relations in the place, but there
was, nevertheless, loud weeping heard, and much mournful praise of the
dead couple. The village magistrate walked with one of the children at
each hand behind the two coffins. Even at the grave the children were
quiet and unconscious, indeed, almost cheerful, though they often asked
for their father and mother. They dined at the magistrate's house, and
everybody was exceedingly kind to them; and when they got up from the
table, each one received a parcel of cakes to take away.

But that evening, when, according to an arrangement of the village
authorities, "Crappy Zachy" came to get Damie, and Black Marianne called
for Amrei, the children refused to separate from each other, and cried
aloud, and wanted to go home. Damie soon allowed himself to be pacified
by all sorts of promises, but Amrei obliged them to use force--she would
not move from the spot, and the magistrate's foreman had to carry her in
his arms into Black Marianne's house. There she found her own bed--the
one she had used at home--but she would not lie down on it. Finally,
however, exhausted by crying, she fell asleep on the floor and was put
to bed in her clothes. Damie, too, was heard weeping aloud at Crappy
Zachy's, and even screaming pitiably, but soon after he was silent.

The much-defamed Black Marianne, on the other hand, showed on this first
evening how quietly anxious she was about her foster-child. For many,
many years she had not had a child about her, and now she stood before
the sleeping girl and said, almost aloud:

"Happy sleep of childhood! Happy children who can be crying, and
before you look around they are asleep, without worry or restless
tossing!"

[Illustration: Benjamin Vautier TWO COFFINS WERE CARRIED AWAY FROM THE
LITTLE HOUSE]

She sighed deeply.

The next morning Amrei went early to her brother to help him dress
himself, and consoled him concerning what had happened to him, declaring
that when their father came home he would pay off Crappy Zachy. Then the
two children went out to their parents' house, knocked at the door and
wept aloud, until Coaly Mathew, who lived near there, came and took them
to school. He asked the master to explain to the children that their
parents were dead, because he himself could not make it clear to
them--Amrei especially seemed determined not to understand it. The
master did all he could, and the children became quiet. But from the
school they went back to the empty house and waited there, hungry and
forsaken, until they were fetched away.

Josenhans' house was taken by the mortgagee, and the payment the
deceased had made upon it was lost; for the value of houses had
decreased enormously through emigration; many houses in the village
stood empty, and Josenhans' dwelling also remained unoccupied. All the
movable property had been sold, and a small sum had thus been realized
for the children, but it was not nearly enough to pay for their board;
they were consequently parish children, and as such were placed with
those who would take them at the cheapest rate.

One day Amrei announced gleefully to her brother that she knew where
their parents' cuckoo-clock was--Coaly Mathew had bought it. And that
very evening the children stood outside the house and waited for the
cuckoo to sing; and when it did, they laughed aloud.

And every morning the children went to the old house, and knocked, and
played beside the pond, as we saw them doing today. Now they listen, for
they hear a sound that is not often heard at this season of the year-the
cuckoo at Coaly Mathew's is singing eight times.

"We must go to school," said Amrei, and she turned quickly with her
brother through the garden-path back into the village. As they passed
Farmer Rodel's barn, Damie said:

"They've threshed a great deal at our guardian's today." And he pointed
to the bands of threshed sheaves that hung over the half-door of the
barn, as evidence of accomplished work. Amrei nodded silently.




CHAPTER II

THE DISTANT SOUL


Farmer Rodel, whose house with its red beams and its pious text in a
large heart over the door, was not far from Josenhans's had let himself
be appointed guardian of the orphan children by the Village Council. He
made the less objection for the reason that Josenhans had, in former
days, served as second-man on his farm. His guardianship, however, was
practically restricted to his taking care of the father's unsold
clothes, and to his occasionally asking one of the children, as he
passed by: "Are you good?"--whereupon he would march off without even
waiting for an answer. Nevertheless a strange feeling of pride came over
the children when they heard that the rich farmer was their guardian,
and they looked upon themselves as very fortunate people, almost
aristocratic. They often stood near the large house and looked up at it
expectantly, as if they were waiting for something and knew not what;
and often, too, they sat by the plows and harrows near the barn and read
the biblical text on the house over and over again. The house seemed to
speak to them, if no one else did.

It was the Sunday before All Souls' Day, and the children were again
playing before the locked house of their parents,--they seemed to love
the spot,--when Farmer Landfried's wife came down the road from
Hochdorf, with a large red umbrella under her arm, and a hymn-book in
her hand. She was paying a final visit to her native place; for the day
before the hired-man had already carried her household furniture out of
the village in a four-horse wagon, and early the next morning she was to
move with her husband and her three children to the farm they had just
bought in distant Allgau. From way up by the mill Dame Landfried was
already nodding to the children--for to meet children on first going out
is, they say, a good sign--but the children could not see her nodding,
nor could they see her sorrowful features. At last, when she drew near
to them, she said:

"God greet ye, children! What are you doing here so early? To whom do
you belong?"

"To Josenhans--there!" answered Amrei, pointing to the house.

"Oh, you poor children!" cried the woman, clasping her hands. "I should
have known you, my girl, for your mother, when she went to school with
me, looked just as you do--we were good companions; and your father
served my cousin, Farmer Rodel. I know all about you. But tell me,
Amrei, why have you no shoes on? You might take cold in such weather as
this! Tell Marianne that Dame Landfried of Hochdorf told you to say, it
is not right of her to let you run about like this! But no--you needn't
say anything--I will speak to her myself. But, Amrei, you are a big girl
now, and must be sensible and look out for yourself. Just think--what
would your mother say, if she knew that you were running about barefoot
at this season of the year?"

The child looked at the speaker with wide-open eyes, as if to say:
"Doesn't my mother know anything about it?"

But the woman continued:

"That's the worst of it, that you poor children cannot know what
virtuous parents you had, and therefore older people must tell you.
Remember that you will give real, true happiness to your parents, when
they hear, yonder in heaven, how the people down here on earth are
saying 'The Josenhans children are models of all goodness--one can see
in them the blessing of honest parents.'"

The tears poured down the woman's cheeks as she spoke these last words.
The feeling of grief in her soul, arising from quite another cause,
burst out irresistibly at these words and thoughts; there was sorrow for
herself mingled with pity for others. She laid her hand upon the head of
the girl, who, when she saw the woman weeping, also began to weep
bitterly; she very likely felt that this was a good soul inclining
toward her, and a dawning consciousness began to steal over her that she
had really lost her parents.

Suddenly the woman's face seemed irradiated. She raised her still
tearful eyes to heaven, and said:

"Gracious God, Thou givest me the thought." Then, turning to the child,
she went on: "Listen--I will take you with me. My Lisbeth was just your
age when she was taken from me. Tell me, will you go with me to Allgau
and live with me?"

"Yes," replied Amrei, decidedly.

Then she felt herself nudged and seized from behind. "You must not!"
cried Damie, throwing his arms around her--and he was trembling all
over.

"Be still," said Amrei, to soothe him. "The kind woman will take you
too. Damie is to go with us, is he not?"

"No, child, that cannot be--I have boys enough."

"Then I'll not go either," said Amrei, and she took Damie by the hand.

There is a kind of shudder, wherein a fever and a chill seem to be
quarreling--the joy of doing something and the fear of doing it. One of
these peculiar shudders passed through the strange woman, and she looked
down upon the child with a certain sense of relief. In a moment of
sympathy, urged on by a pure impulse to do a kind deed, she had proposed
to undertake a task and to assume a responsibility, the significance
and weight of which she had not sufficiently considered; and,
furthermore, she had not taken into account what her husband would think
of her taking such a step without her having spoken to him about it.
Consequently when the child herself refused, a reaction set in, and it
all became clear to her; so that she at once acquiesced, with a certain
sense of relief, in the refusal of her offer. She had obeyed an impulse
of her heart by wishing to do this thing, and now that obstacles stood
in the way, she felt rather glad that it was to be left undone, and
without her having been obliged to retract her promise.

"As you like," said the woman. "I will not try to persuade you. Who
knows?--perhaps it is better that you should grow up first anyway. To
learn to bear sorrow in youth is a good thing, and we easily get
accustomed to better times; all those who have turned out really well,
were obliged to suffer some heavy crosses in their youth. Only be good,
and keep this in remembrance, that, so long as you are good, and so long
as God grants me life, there shall always be, for your parents' sake, a
shelter for you with me. But now, it's just as well as it is. Wait! I
will give you something to remember me by." She felt in her pockets; but
suddenly she put her hand up to her neck and said: "No, you shall have
this!" Then she blew on her fingers, which were stiff with the cold,
until they were nimble enough to permit her to unclasp from her neck a
necklace of five rows of garnets, with a Swedish ducat hanging from
them; and she fastened the ornament around the child's neck, kissing her
at the same time.

Amrei watched all this as if spell-bound.

"For you I unfortunately have nothing," said the good woman to Damie,
who was breaking a switch he had in his hand into little pieces. "But I
will send you a pair of leather breeches belonging to my John--they are
quite good still and you can wear them when you grow bigger. And now,
God keep you, dear children. If possible, I shall come to you again,
Amrei. At any rate, send Marianne to me after church. Be good children,
both of you, and pray heartily for your parents in eternity. And don't
forget that you still have protectors, both in heaven and on earth."

The farmer's wife, who, to walk the faster, had tucked her dress up all
around, let it down now that she was at the entrance of the village.
With hurried steps she went along the street, and did not look back
again.

Amrei put her hands up to her neck and bent down her face, wishing to
examine the coin; but she could not quite succeed. Damie was chewing on
the last piece of his switch; when his sister looked at him and saw
tears in his eyes, she said:

"You shall see--you'll get the finest pair of breeches in the village!"

"And I won't take them!" cried Damie, and he spat out a bit of wood.

"And I'll tell her that she must buy you a knife too. I shall stay home
all day today--she's coming to see us."

"Yes, if she were only there already," replied Damie without knowing
what he said; for a feeling that he had been slighted made him jealous
and reproachful.

The first bell was ringing, and the children hastened back to the
village. Amrei, with a brief explanation, gave the newly-acquired
trinket to Marianne, who said:

"On my word, you are a lucky child! I'll take good care of it for you.
Now make haste to church."

All during the service the children kept glancing across at Farmer
Landfried's wife, and when they came out they waited for her at the
door; but the wealthy farmer's wife was surrounded by so many people,
all eagerly talking to her, that she was obliged to keep turning in a
circle to answer first one and then another. She had no opportunity to
notice the wistful glances of the children and their continual nodding.
Dame Landfried had Rosie, Farmer Rodel's youngest daughter, in her hand.
Rosie was a year older than Amrei, who involuntarily kept moving her
hand, as though she would have pushed aside the intruder who was taking
her place. Had the well-to-do farmer's wife eyes for Amrei only out by
the last house, and when they were alone, and did she not know her when
other people were present? Are only the children of rich people noticed
then, and the children of relatives?

Amrei was startled when she suddenly heard this thought, which had begun
to stir gently within her, uttered aloud; it was Damie who uttered it.
And while she followed at a distance the large group of people
surrounding the farmer's wife, she strove to drive the bad thought out
of her brother's mind, as well as out of her own. Dame Landfried at last
disappeared into Farmer Rodel's house, and the children quietly turned
back.

Suddenly Damie said:

"If she comes to you, you must tell her to go to Crappy Zachy too, and
tell him to be good to me."

Amrei nodded; and then the children parted, and went to the separate
houses where they had found shelter.

The clouds, which had lifted in the morning, came back in the afternoon
in the shape of a perfect downpour of rain. Dame Landfried's large red
umbrella was seen here and there around the village, almost hiding the
figure beneath it. Black Marianne had not been able to find her, and she
said on her return home:

"She can come to me--I don't want anything of her."

The two children wandered out to their parents' house again and crouched
down on the door-step, hardly speaking a word. Again the suspicion
seemed to dawn upon them, that after all their parents would not come
back. Then Damie tried to count the drops of rain that fell from the
eaves; but they came down too quickly for him, and he made easy work of
it by crying out all at once: "A thousand million!"

"She must come past here when she goes home," said Amrei, "and then
we'll call out to her. Mind that you help me call, too, and then we'll
have another talk with her."

So said Amrei; for the children were still waiting there for Dame
Landfried.

The cracking of a whip sounded in the village. There was a trampling and
splashing of horses' feet in the slushy street, and a carriage came
rolling along.

"You shall see that it's father and mother coming in a coach to fetch
us," cried Damie.

Amrei looked around at her brother mournfully, and said:

"Don't chatter so."

When she looked back again the carriage was quite near; somebody in it
motioned from beneath a red umbrella, and away rolled the vehicle. Only
Coaly Mathew's dog barked after it for a while, and acted as if he
wanted to seize the spokes with his teeth; but at the pond he turned
back again, barked once more in front of the door, and then slunk into
the house.

"Hurrah! she's gone away!" cried Damie, as if he were glad of it. "It
was Farmer Landfried's wife. Didn't you know Farmer Rodel's black
horses?--they carried her off. Don't forget my leather breeches!" he
cried at the top of his voice, although the carriage had already
disappeared in the valley, and was presently seen creeping up the little
hill by the Holderwasen.

The children returned quietly to the village. Who knows in what way this
incident may take root in the inmost being, and what may sprout from it?
For the present another feeling covers that of the first, bitter
disappointment.




CHAPTER III

FROM THE TREE BY THE PARENTS' HOUSE


On the eve of All Souls' Day Black Marianne said to the children:

"Go, now, and gather some red berries, for we shall want them at the
graveyard tomorrow."

"I know where to find them! I can get some!" cried Damie with genuine
eagerness and joy. And away he ran out of the village, at such a pace
that Amrei could hardly keep up with him; and when she arrived at their
parents' house he was already up in the tree, teasing her in a boasting
manner and calling for her to come up too--because he knew that she
could not. And now he began to pluck the red berries and threw them down
into his sister's apron. She asked him to pick them with their stems on,
because she wanted to make a wreath. He answered, "No, I
shan't!"--nevertheless no berries fell down after that without stems on
them.

"Hark, how the sparrows are scolding!" cried Damie from the tree.
"They're angry because I'm taking their food away from them!" And
finally, when he had plucked all the berries, he said: "I shan't come
down again, but shall stay up here day and night until I die and drop
down, and shall never come to you at all any more, unless you promise me
something!"

"What is it?"

"That you'll never wear the necklace that Farmer Landfried's wife gave
you, so long as I can see it. Will you promise me that?"

"No!"

"Then I shall never come down!"

"Very well," said Amrei, and she went away with her berries. But before
she had gone far, she sat down behind a pile of wood and started to make
a wreath, every now and then peeping out to see if Damie was not coming.
She put the wreath on her head. Suddenly an indescribable anxiety about
Damie seized her; she ran back, and there was Damie, sitting astride a
branch and leaning back against the trunk of the tree with his arms
folded.

"Come down! I'll promise you what you want!" cried Amrei; and in a
moment Damie was down on the ground beside her.

When she got home, Black Marianne called her a foolish child and scolded
her for making a wreath for herself out of the berries that were
intended for her parents' graves. Marianne quickly destroyed the wreath,
muttering a few words which the children could not understand. Then she
took them both by the hand and led them out to the churchyard; and
passing where two mounds lay close together, she said:

"There are your parents!"

The children looked at each other in surprise. Marianne then made a
cross-shaped furrow in each of the mounds, and showed the children how
to stick the berries in. Damie was handy at the work, and boasted
because his red cross was finished sooner than his sister's. Amrei
looked at him fixedly and made no answer; but when Damie said, "That
will please father," she struck him on the back and said: "Be quiet!"

Damie began to cry, perhaps louder than he really meant to. Then Amrei
called out:

"For heaven's sake, forgive me!--forgive me for doing that to you. Right
here, I promise you that I'll do all I can for you, all my life long,
and give you everything I have. I didn't hurt you, Damie, did I? You may
depend upon it, it shall not happen again as long as I live--never
again!--never! Oh, mother! Oh, father! I shall be good, I promise you!
Oh, mother! Oh, father!"

She could say no more; but she did not weep aloud, although it was plain
that her heart was almost bursting. Not until Black Marianne burst out
crying did Amrei weep with her.

They returned home, and when Damie said "Good night," Amrei whispered
into his ear:

"Now I know that we shall never see our parents again in this world."

Even from making this communication she derived a certain
satisfaction--a childish pride which is awakened by having something to
impart. And yet in this child's heart there had dawned something like a
realization that one of the great ties in her life had been severed
forever, the thought that arises with the consciousness that a parent is
no longer with us.

When the lips which called thee child have been sealed by death, a
breath has vanished from thy life that shall nevermore return.

While Black Marianne was sitting beside the child's bed, the little one
said:

"I seem to be falling and falling, on and on. Let me keep hold of your
hand."

Holding the hand fast, she dropped into a slumber; but as often as Black
Marianne tried to draw her hand away, she clutched at it again. Marianne
understood what this sensation of endless falling signified for the
child; she felt in realizing her parents' death as if she were being
wafted along, without knowing whence or whither.

It was not until nearly midnight that Marianne was able to quit the
child's bedside, after she had repeated her usual twelve Paternosters
over and over again, who knows how many times? A look of stern defiance
was on the face of the sleeping child. She had laid one hand across her
bosom; Black Marianne gently lifted it, and said, half-aloud, to
herself:

"If there were only an eye to watch over thee and a hand to help thee
all the time, as there is now in thy sleep, and to take the heaviness
out of thy heart without thy knowing it! But nobody can do that--none
but He alone. Oh, may He do unto my child in distant lands as I do unto
this little one!"

Black Marianne was a shunned woman, that is to say, people were almost
afraid of her, so harsh did she seem in her manner. Some eighteen years
before she had lost her husband, who had been shot in an attempt which
he had made with some companions to rob the stage-coach. Marianne was
expecting a child to be born when the body of her husband, with its
blackened face, was carried into the village; but she bore up bravely
and washed the dead man's face as if she hoped, by so doing, to wash
away his black guilt. Her three daughters died, and only the son, who
was born soon afterward, lived to grow up. He turned out to be a
handsome lad, though he had a strange, dark color in his face; he was
now traveling abroad as a journeyman mason. For from the time of Brosi,
and especially since that worthy man's son, Severin, had worked his way
up to such high honor with the mallet, many of the young men in the
village had chosen to follow the mason's calling. The children used to
talk of Severin as if he were a prince in a fairy tale. And so Black
Marianne's only child had, in spite of her remonstrances, become a
mason, and was now wandering around the country. And she, who all her
life long had never left the village, nor had ever desired to leave it,
often declared that she seemed to herself like a hen that had hatched a
duck's egg; but she was almost always clucking to herself about it.

One would hardly believe it, but Black Marianne was one of the most
cheerful persons in the village; she was never seen to be sorrowful, for
she did not like to have people pity her; and that is why they did not
take to her. In the winter she was the most industrious spinner in the
village, and in the summer, the busiest at gathering wood, a large part
of which she was able to sell; and "my John"--for that was her surviving
child's name--"my John" was always the subject of her conversation. She
said that she had taken little Amrei to live with her, not from a desire
to be kind, but in order that she might have some living being about
her. She liked to appear rough before people, and thus enjoyed, all the
more, the proud consciousness of independence.

The exact opposite to her was Crappy Zachy, with whom Damie had found
shelter. This worthy represented himself to people as a kind-hearted
fellow who would give away anything he had; but as a matter of fact he
bullied and ill-used his entire household, and especially Damie, for
whose keep he received but a small sum of money. His real name was
Zechariah, and he got his nickname from his once having brought home to
his wife a couple of finely trussed pigeons to roast, but they were in
fact a pair of plucked ravens, which in that part of the country are
called "crappies." Crappy Zachy, who had a wooden leg, spent most of his
time knitting woolen stockings and jackets; and with his knitting he
used to sit about in the village wherever there was any opportunity to
gossip. This gossiping, in the course of which he heard all sorts of
news, was a source of some very profitable side-business for him. He was
what they called the "marriage-maker" of the region; for in those parts,
where there are large, separate estates, marriages are generally managed
through agents, who find out accurately the relative circumstances of
the prospective couples, and arrange everything beforehand. When a
marriage of this kind had been brought about, Crappy Zachy used to play
the fiddle at the wedding, for he had quite a reputation in the region
as a fiddler; moreover, when his hands were tired from fiddling, he
could play the clarionet and the horn. In fact, he was an undoubted
genius.

Damie's whining and sensitive nature was very disgusting to Crappy
Zachy, and he tried to cure him of it by giving him plenty to cry about
and teasing him whenever he could.

Thus the two little stems which had sprouted in the same garden were
transplanted into different soils. The position and the nature of the
ground, and the qualities that were inherent in each stem, made them
grow up very differently.




CHAPTER IV

"OPEN, DOOR"


All Souls' Day came. It was dull and foggy, and the children stood among
a crowd of people assembled in the churchyard. Crappy Zachy had led
Damie there by the hand, but Amrei had come alone, without Black
Marianne; many were angry at the hard-hearted woman, while a few hit a
part of the truth when they said that Marianne did not like to visit
graves, because she did not know where her husband's grave was. Amrei
was quiet and did not shed a tear, while Damie wept bitterly at the
pitying remarks of the bystanders, more especially because Crappy Zachy
had given him several sly pinches and pokes. For a time Amrei, in a
dreamy, forgetful way, stood gazing at the lights on the heads of the
graves, watching the flame consume the wax and the wick grow blacker,
and blacker, until at last the light was quite burnt out.

In the crowd a man, wearing handsome, town-made clothes and with a
ribbon in his button-hole, was moving about here and there. It was the
High Commissioner of Public Works, Severin, who, on a trip of
inspection, had come to visit the graves of his parents, Brosi and Moni.
His brothers and sisters and other relatives were constantly crowding
around him with a kind of deferential respect; in fact, the usual
reverence of the occasion was almost entirely diverted, nearly all the
attention being fixed upon this stranger. Amrei also looked at him, and
asked Crappy Zachy:

"Is that a bridegroom?"

"Why?"

"Because he has a ribbon in his button-hole."

Instead of answering her, the first thing that Crappy Zachy did was to
go up to a group of people and tell them what a stupid speech the child
had made; and from among the graves there arose a loud laugh over her
foolishness. Only Farmer Rodel's wife said: "I don't see anything
foolish in that. Although it is a mark of honor that Severin has, it is
after all a strange thing for him to go about in the churchyard with
such a decoration on--in the place where we see what we are all coming
to, whether in our lifetime we have worn clothes of silk or of homespun.
It annoyed me to see him wear it in the church--a thing of that kind
ought to be taken off when one goes to church, and more especially in
the churchyard!"

The rumor of little Amrei's question must have penetrated to Severin
himself, for he was seen to button his overcoat hastily, and as he did
so he nodded at the child. Now he was heard to ask who she was, and as
soon as he found out, he came hurrying across to the children beside the
fresh graves, and said to Amrei:

"Come here, my child. Open your hand. Here is a ducat for you--buy what
you want with it."

The child stared at him and did not answer. But scarcely had Severin
turned his back when she called out to him, half-aloud:

"I won't take any presents!"--and she flung the ducat after him.

Several people who had seen this came up to Amrei and scolded her; and
just as they were about to illuse her, she was again saved from their
rough hands by Farmer Rodel's wife, who once before had protected her
with words. But even she requested Amrei to go after Severin and at
least thank him. But Amrei made no answer whatsoever; she remained
obstinate, so that her protectress also left her. Only with considerable
difficulty was the ducat found again, and a member of the Village
Council, who was present, took charge of it in order to deliver it over
to the child's guardian.

This incident gave Amrei a strange reputation in the village. People
said she had lived only a few days with Black Marianne, and yet had
already acquired that woman's manners. It was declared to be an unheard
of thing that a child so sunk in poverty could be so proud, and she was
scolded up hill and down dale for this pride, so that she became
thoroughly aware of it, and in her young, childish heart there arose an
attitude of defiance, a resolve to evince it all the more. Black
Marianne, moreover, did her part to strengthen this state of mind, for
she said: "Nothing more lucky can happen to a poor person than to be
considered proud, for by that means he or she is saved from being
trampled upon by everybody, and from being expected to offer thanks for
such usage afterward."

In the winter Amrei was at Crappy Zachy's much of the time, for she was
very fond of hearing him play the violin; yes, and Crappy Zachy on one
occasion bestowed such high praise upon her as to say: "You are not
stupid;" for Amrei, after listening to his playing for a long time, had
remarked: "It's wonderful how a fiddle can hold its breath so long; I
can't do that." And, on quiet winter nights at home, when Marianne told
sparkling and horrifying goblin-stories, Amrei, when they were finished,
would draw a deep breath and say: "Oh, Marianne, I must take breath
now--I was obliged to hold my breath all the time you were speaking."

No one paid much attention to Amrei, and the child could dream away just
as she had a mind to. Only the schoolmaster said once at a meeting of
the Village Council, that he had never seen such a child--she was at
once defiant and yielding, dreamy and alert. In truth, with all her
childish self-forgetfulness, there was already developing in little
Amrei a sense of responsibility, an attitude of self-defense in
opposition to the world, its kindness and its malice. Damie, on the
other hand, came crying and complaining to his sister upon every
trifling occasion. He was, furthermore, always pitying himself, and when
he was tumbled over by his playmates in their wrestling matches, he
always whined: "Yes, because I am an orphan they beat me! Oh, if my
father and mother knew of it!"--and then he cried twice as much over the
injustice of it. Damie let everybody give him things to eat, and thus
became greedy, while Amrei was satisfied with a little, and thus
acquired habits of moderation. Even the roughest boys were afraid of
Amrei, although nobody knew how she had proved her strength, while Damie
would run away from quite little boys. In school Damie was always up to
mischief; he shuffled his feet and turned down the leaves of the books
with his fingers as he read. Amrei, on the other hand, was always bright
and attentive, though she often wept in the school, not for the
punishment she herself received, but because Damie was so often
punished.

Amrei could please Damie best by telling him the answers to riddles. The
children still used to sit frequently by the house of their rich
guardian, sometimes near the wagons, sometimes near the oven behind the
house, where they used to warm themselves, especially in the autumn.
Once Amrei asked:

"What's the best thing about an oven?"

"You know I can't guess anything," replied Damie, plaintively.

"Then I'll tell you:

  'In the oven this is best, 'tis said,
  That it never itself doth eat the bread.'"

And then, pointing to the wagons before the house, Amrei asked:

"What's full of holes, and yet holds? "--and without waiting for a
reply, she gave the answer: "A chain!"

"Now you must let me ask you these riddles," said Damie.

And Amrei replied: "Yes, you may ask them. But do you see those sheep
coming yonder? Now I know another riddle."

"No!" cried Damie, "no! Two are enough for me--I can't remember three!"

"Yes, you must hear this one too, or else I'll take the others back!"

And Damie kept repeating to himself, anxiously: "A chain," "Eat it
itself," while Amrei asked:

"On which side have sheep the most wool?"--"Ba! ba! on the outside!" she
sang merrily.

Damie now ran off to ask his playmates these riddles; he kept his fists
tightly clenched, as if he were holding the riddles fast and was
determined not to let them go. But when he got to his playmates, he
remembered only the one about the chain; and Farmer Rodel's eldest son,
whom he hadn't asked at all and who was much too old for that sort of
thing, guessed the answer at once, and Damie ran back to his sister
crying.

Little Amrei's cleverness at riddles soon began to be talked about in
the village, and even rich, serious farmers, who seldom wasted many
words on anybody, and least of all on a poor child, now and then
condescended to ask little Amrei one. That she knew a great many herself
was not strange, for she had probably learned them from Black Marianne;
but that she was able to answer so many new ones caused general
astonishment. Amrei would soon have been unable to go across the street
or into the fields without being stopped and questioned, if she had not
found out a remedy; she made it a rule that she would not answer a
riddle for anybody, unless she might propose one in return, and she
managed to think up such good ones that the people stood still as if
spell-bound. Never had a poor child been so much noticed in the village
as was this little Amrei. But, as she grew older, less attention was
paid to her, for people look with sympathetic eyes only at the blossom
and the fruit, and disregard the long period of transition during which
the one is ripening into the other.

Before Amrei's school-days were over, Fate gave her a riddle that was
difficult to solve.

The children had an uncle, a woodcutter, who lived some fifteen miles
from Haldenbrunn, at Fluorn. They had seen him only once, and that was
at their parents' funeral, when he had walked behind the magistrate, who
had led the children by the hand. After that time the children often
dreamt about their uncle at Fluorn. They were often told that this uncle
was like their father, which made them still more anxious to see him;
for although they still believed at times that their father and mother
would some day suddenly reappear--it could not be that they had gone
away forever--still, as the years rolled on, they gradually became
reconciled to giving up this hope, especially after they had over and
over again put berries on the graves, and had long been able to read the
two names on the same black cross. They also almost entirely forgot
about the uncle in Fluorn, for during many years they had heard nothing
of him.

But one day the children were called into their guardian's house, and
there sat a tall, heavy man with a brown face.

"Come here, children," said this man, as the children entered. "Don't
you know me?" He had a dry, harsh voice.

The children looked at him with wondering eyes. Perhaps some remembrance
of their father's voice awoke within them. The man continued:

"I am your father's brother. Come here, Lisbeth, and you too, Damie."

"My name's not Lisbeth--my name's Amrei," said the girl; and she began
to cry. She did not offer her hand to her uncle. A feeling of
estrangement made her tremble, when her own uncle thus called her by a
wrong name; she very likely felt that there could be no real affection
for her in anybody who did not know her name.

"If you are my uncle, why don't you know my name?" asked Amrei.

"You are a stupid child! Go and offer him your hand immediately!"
commanded Farmer Rodel. And then he said to the stranger, half in a
whisper: "She's a strange child. Black Marianne, who, you know, is a
peculiar sort of person, has put all sorts of odd notions into her
head."

Amrei looked around in astonishment, and gave her hand to her uncle,
trembling. Damie, who had done so already, now said:

"Uncle, have you brought us anything?"

"I haven't much to bring. I bring myself, and you're to go with me. Do
you know, Amrei, that it's not at all right for you not to like your
uncle. You'd better come here and sit down beside me--nearer still. You
see, your brother Damie is much more sensible. He looks more like our
family, but you belong to us too."

A maid now came in with some man's clothing, which she laid on the
table.

"These are your brother's clothes," said Farmer Rodel to the stranger;
and the latter went on to say to Amrei:

"As you see, these are your father's clothes. We shall take them with
us, and you shall go too--first to Fluorn, and then across the brook."

Amrei, trembling, touched her father's coat and his blue-striped vest.
But the uncle lifted up the clothes, pointed to the worn-out elbows, and
said to Farmer Rodel:

"These are worth very little--I won't have them valued at much. I don't
even know if I can wear them over in America, without being laughed at."

Amrei seized the coat passionately. That her father's coat, which she
had looked upon as a costly and invaluable treasure, should be
pronounced of little value, seemed to grieve her, and that these clothes
were to be worn in America, and ridiculed there, almost bewildered her.
And, anyway, what was the meaning of this talk about America? This
mystery was soon cleared up, when Farmer Rodel's wife came, and with
her, Black Marianne; for Dame Rodel said:

"Harkye, husband--to my mind this thing should not be done so fast, this
sending the children off to America with that man."

"But he is their only living relative, Josenhans' brother."

"Yes, to be sure. But until now he has not done much to show that he is
a relative; and I fancy that this cannot be done without the approval
of the Council, and even the Council cannot do it alone. The children
have a legal right to live here, which cannot be taken away from them in
their sleep, so to speak--for the children are not yet in a position to
say what they want themselves. It's like carrying people off in their
sleep."

"My Amrei is intelligent enough. She's thirteen now, but more clever
than many a person of thirty, and she knows what she wants," said Black
Marianne.

"You two ought to have been town-councilors," said Farmer Rodel. "But
it's my opinion, too, that the children ought not to be tied to a rope,
like calves, and dragged away. Well, let the man talk with them himself,
and then we shall see what further is to be done. He is after all their
natural protector, and has the right to stand in their father's place,
if he likes. Harkye; do you take a little walk with your brother's
children outside the village, and you women stay here, and let nobody
try to persuade or dissuade them."

The woodcutter took the two children by the hand, and went out of the
room and out of the house with them. In the street he asked the
children:

"Whither shall we go?"

"If you want to be our father, go home with us," suggested Damie. "Our
house is down yonder."

"Is it open?" asked the uncle.

"No, but Coaly Mathew has the key. But he has never let us go in. I'll
run on and get the key."

Damie released himself quickly, and ran off. Amrei felt like a prisoner
as her uncle led her along by the hand. He spoke earnestly and
confidentially to her now, however, and explained, almost as if he were
excusing himself, that he had a large family of his own and, that he
could hardly get along with his wife and five children. But now a man,
who was the owner of large forests in America, had offered him a free
passage across the ocean, and in five years, when he had cleared away
the forest, he was to have a large piece of the best farm-land as his
own property. In gratitude to God, who had bestowed this upon him for
himself and his family, he had immediately made up his mind to do a good
deed by taking his brother's children with him. But he was not going to
compel them to go; indeed, he would take them only on the condition that
they should turn to him with their whole hearts and look upon him as
their second father.

Amrei looked at him with eyes of wonder. If she could only bring herself
to love this man! But she was almost afraid of him--she could not help
it. And to have him thus fall from the clouds, as it were, and compel
her to love him, rather turned her against him.

"Where is your wife?" asked Amrei. She very likely felt that a woman
would have broached the subject in a more gentle and gradual manner.

"I will tell you honestly," answered her uncle. "My wife does not
interfere in this matter, and says she will neither persuade nor
dissuade me. She is a little sharp, but only at first--if you are good
to her, and you are a sensible child, you can twist her around your
finger. And if, once in a while, anything should happen to you that you
don't like, remember that you are at your father's brother's, and tell
me about it alone. I will help you all I can, and you shall see that
your real life is just beginning."

Amrei's eyes filled with tears at these words; and yet she could say
nothing, for she felt estranged toward this man. His voice appealed to
her, but when she looked at him, she felt as if she would have liked to
run away.

Damie now came with the key. Amrei started to take it from him, but he
would not give it up. With the peculiar pedantic conscientiousness of a
child he declared that he had faithfully promised Coaly Mathew's wife to
give it to nobody but his uncle. Accordingly the uncle took it from him,
and it seemed to Amrei as if a magic secret door were being opened when
the key for the first time rattled in the lock and turned--the hasp went
down and the door opened! A strange chill, like that of a vault, came
creeping from the black front-room, which had also served as a kitchen.
A little heap of ashes still lay on the hearth, and on the door the
initials of Caspar Melchior Balthasar and the date of the parent's
death, were written in chalk. Amrei read it aloud--her own father had
written it.

"Look," cried Damie, "the eight is shaped just as you make it, and as
the master won't have it--you know--from right to left."

Amrei motioned to him to keep quiet. She thought it terrible and sinful
that Damie should talk so lightly--here, where she felt as if she were
in church, or even in eternity--quite out of the world, and yet in the
very midst of it. She herself opened the inside door; the room was dark
as a grave, for the shutters were closed. A single sunbeam, shining
through a crack in the wall, fell on the angel's head on the tile stove
in such a way that the angel seemed to be laughing. Amrei crouched down
in terror. When she looked up again, her uncle had opened one of the
shutters, and the warm, outside air poured in. How cold it seemed in
there! None of the furniture was left in the room but a bench nailed to
the wall. There her mother used to spin, and there she had put Amrei's
little hands together and taught her to knit.

"Come, children, let us go now," said the uncle. "It is not good to be
here. Come with me to the baker and I will buy you each a white roll--or
do you like biscuits better?"

"No, let us stay here a little longer," said Amrei; and she kept on
stroking the place where her mother had sat. Then, pointing to a white
spot on the wall, she said, half in a whisper: "There our cuckoo clock
used to hang, and there our father's discharge from the army. And there
the hanks of yarn that mother spun used to hang--she could spin even
better than Black Marianne--Black Marianne has said so herself. She
always got a skein more out of a pound than anybody else, and it was
always so even--not a knot in it. And do you see that ring up there on
the ceiling? It was beautiful to see her twisting the threads there. If
I had been old enough to know then, I would not have let them sell
mother's spindle--it would have been a fine legacy for me. But there was
nobody to take any interest in us. Oh, mother dear! Oh, father dear! If
you knew how we have been pushed about, it would grieve you, even in
eternity."

Amrei began to weep aloud, and Damie wept with her; even the uncle dried
his eyes. He again urged them to come away from the place; he was vexed
for having caused himself and the children this grief. But Amrei said in
a decided way:

"Even if you do go, I shall not go with you."

"How do you mean? You will not go with me at all?"

Amrei started; for she suddenly realized what she had said, and it
seemed to her almost as if it had been an inspiration. But presently she
answered:

"No, I don't know about that yet. I merely meant to say, that I shall
not willingly leave this house until I have seen everything again. Come,
Damie, you are my brother--come up into the attic. Do you remember where
we used to play hide-and-seek, behind the chimney? And then we'll look
out of the window, where we dried the truffles. Don't you remember the
bright florin father got for them?"

Something rustled and pattered across the ceiling. All three started,
and the uncle said quickly:

"Stay where you are, Damie, and you too. What do you want up there?
Don't you hear the mice running about?"

"Come with me--they won't eat us!" Amrei insisted. Damie, however,
declared that he would not go, and Amrei, although she felt a secret
fear, took courage and went upstairs alone. But she soon came down
again, looking as pale as death, with nothing in her hand but a bundle
of old straws.

"Damie says he'll go with me to America," said the uncle, as she came
forward. Amrei, breaking up the straws in her hands, replied: "I've
nothing to say against it. I don't know yet what I shall do, but he can
go if he likes."

"No," cried Damie, "I shan't do that. You did not go with Dame Landfried
when she wanted to take you away, and so I shall not go off alone
without you."

"Well, then, think it over--you are sensible enough," said the uncle, to
conclude the matter. He then closed the shutters again, so that they
stood in the dark, and hurried the children out of the room and through
the vestibule, locked the outside door, and went to take the key back to
Coaly Mathew. After that he started for the village with Damie alone.
When he was some way off, he called back to Amrei:

"You have until tomorrow morning--then I shall go away whether you go
with me or not."

Amrei was left alone. She looked after the retreating figures and
wondered how one person could go away from another.

"There he goes," she thought, "and yet he belongs to you, and you to
him."

Strange! As in a sleep-dream, a subject that has been lightly touched
upon is renewed and interwoven with all sorts of strange details, so was
it now with Amrei in her waking-dream. Damie had made but a passing
allusion to the meeting with Farmer Landfried's wife. The remembrance of
her had half faded away; but now it suddenly rose up fresh again--like a
picture of past life in a vision. Amrei said to herself, almost aloud:

"Who knows if she may not thus suddenly think of you? One cannot tell
why she should, and yet perhaps she is thinking of you at this very
moment. For in this place she promised to be your protectress whenever
you came to her,--it was yonder by the stunted willows. Why is it, that
only the trees remain to be seen? Why is not a word like a tree,
something which stands firmly, something which one can hold to. Yes, one
can, if one will. Then one is as well off as a tree--and what an
honorable farmer's wife says, is firm and lasting. She, too, wept
because she had to go away from her native place, although she had been
married and away from it for a long time. And she has children of her
own--one of them is called John."

Amrei was standing by the tree where they had picked the berries. She
laid her hand upon the trunk and said:

"You--why don't you go away, too? Why don't people tell you to emigrate?
Perhaps for you, too, it would be better elsewhere. But, to be sure, you
are too large--you did not place yourself here, and who knows if you
would not die in some other place. You can only be hewn down, not
transplanted. Nonsense! I also had to leave my home. If it were my
father, I should be obliged to go with him--he would not need to ask me.
And he who asks too much, goes astray. No one can advise me in this
matter, not even Marianne. And, after all, with my uncle, it's like
this: 'I am doing you a good turn, and you must repay me.' If he's
severe with me, and with Damie, because he's awkward, and we have to run
away, where in this wide, strange world are we to go? Here everybody
knows us, and every hedge, every tree has a familiar face. 'You know me,
don't you?' she said, looking up at the tree. 'Oh, if you could but
speak! God created you too--why cannot you speak? You knew my father and
mother so well--why cannot you tell me what they would advise me to do?'
Oh, dear father! Oh, dear mother! It grieves me so to have to go away! I
have nothing here, and hardly anybody, and yet I feel as if I were being
driven out of a warm bed into the cold snow. Is this deep sadness that I
feel a sign that I ought not to go? Is it the true voice of conscience,
or is it but a foolish fear? Oh, good Heaven, I do not know! If only a
voice from Heaven would come now and tell me!"

The child trembled with inward terror, and the sense of life's
difficulties for the first time arose vividly within her. And again she
went on, half-thinking, half-talking to herself--but this time in a more
decided way:

"If I were alone, I know for certain that I should not go; I should
stay here. For it would grieve me too much. Alone I could get along.
Good--remember that; of one thing, then, you are sure--as to yourself
you are decided. But what foolish thoughts are these! How can I imagine
that I am alone, and without Damie? I am not alone--I belong to Damie,
and he belongs to me. And for Damie it would be better if he had a
fatherly hand to guide him--it would help him up. But why do you want
anybody else, Amrei?--can you not take care of him yourself, if it be
necessary? If he once starts out in that way, I can see that he'll be
nothing but a servant all his life, a drudge for other people. And who
knows how uncle's children will behave toward us? Because they're poor
people themselves, they'll play the masters with us. No, no! I'm sure
they're good,--and it would be a fine thing to be able to say: 'Good
morning, cousin.' If uncle had only brought one of the children with
him, I could decide much better--I could find out about things. Oh, good
heavens, how difficult all this is!"

Amrei sat down by the tree. A chaffinch came hopping along, picked up a
seed, looked around him, and flew away. Something crept across Amrei's
face; she brushed it off--it was a ladybird. She let it creep about on
her hand, between the mountains and valleys of her fingers, until it
came to the tip of her little-finger and flew away.

"What a tale he'll have to tell about where he has been!" thought Amrei.
"A little creature like that is well off indeed--wherever it flies, it
is at home. How the larks are singing! They, too, are well off--they do
not have to think what they ought to say and do. Yonder the butcher,
with his dog, is driving a calf out of the village. The dog's voice is
quite different from the lark's--but then a lark's singing would never
drive a calf along."

"Where's the colt going?" Coaly Mathew called out of his window to a
young lad who was leading a fine colt away by a halter.

"Farmer Rodel has sold it," was the reply; and presently the colt was
heard neighing farther down the valley. Amrei, who had heard this,
again reflected:

"Yes, a creature like that can be sold away from its mother, and the
mother hardly knows of it; and whoever pays for it, to him it belongs.
But a person cannot be sold, and he who is unwilling cannot be led away
by a halter. Yonder comes Farmer Rodel and his horses, with a large colt
frisking beside them. You will be put in harness soon, colt, and perhaps
you, too, will be sold. A man cannot be bought--he merely hires himself
out. An animal for its work gets nothing more than its food and drink,
while a person gets money as a reward. Yes, I can be a maid now, and
with my wages I can apprentice Damie--he wants to be a mason. But when
we are at uncle's, Damie won't be as much mine as he is now. Hark! the
starling is flying home to the house which father made for him--he's
singing merrily again. Father made the house for him out of old planks.
I remember his saying that a starling won't go into a house if it's made
of new wood, and I feel just the same. 'You, tree,--now I know--if you
rustle as long as I stay here, I shall remain.'" And Amrei listened
intently; soon it seemed to her as if the tree were rustling, but again
when she looked up at the branches they were quite still, and she did
not know what it was she heard.

Something was now coming along the road with a great cackling and with a
cloud of dust flying before it. It was a flock of geese returning from
the pasture on the Holderwasen. Amrei abstractedly imitated their
cackling for a long time. Then her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

An entire spring-array of blossoms had burst forth in this young soul.
The budding trees in the valley, as they drank in the evening dew, shed
forth their fragrance over the child who had fallen asleep on her native
soil, from which she could not tear herself.

It had long been dark when she awoke, and a voice was crying:

"Amrei, where are you?"

She sat up, but did not answer. She looked wonderingly at the
stars,--it seemed to her as if the voice had come from Heaven. Not until
the call was repeated did she recognize the voice of Black Marianne, and
then she answered:

"Here I am!"

Black Marianne now came up and said:

"Oh, it's good that I have found you! They are like mad all through the
village; one says he saw you in the wood, another that he met you in the
fields, that you were running along, crying, and would listen to no
call. I began to fear that you had jumped into the pond. You need not be
afraid, dear child, you need not run away; nobody can compel you to go
with your uncle."

"And who said that I did not want to go?" But suddenly a gust of wind
rustled loudly through the branches of the tree. "But I shall certainly
not go!" Amrei cried, holding fast to the tree with her hand.

"Come home--there's a severe storm coming up, and the wind will blow it
here directly," urged Marianne.

And so Amrei walked, almost staggered, back to the village with Black
Marianne. What did it mean--that people had seen her running through
field and forest? Or was it only Black Marianne's fancy?

The night was pitch dark, but now and then bright flashes of lightning
illuminated the houses, revealing them in a dazzling glare, which
blinded their eyes and compelled them to stand still. And when the
lightning disappeared, nothing more could be seen. In their own native
village the two seemed as if they were lost, as if they were in a
strange place, and they hastened onward with an uncertain step. The dust
whirled up in eddies, so that at times they could scarcely make any
progress; then, wet with perspiration, they struggled on again, until at
last they reached the shelter of their home, just as the first heavy
drops of rain began to fall. A gust of wind blew open the door, and
Amrei cried:

"Open, door!"

She was very likely thinking of a fairy tale, in which a magic door
opens at a mysterious word.




CHAPTER V

ON THE HOLDERWASEN


Accordingly, when her uncle came the next morning, Amrei declared that
she would remain where she was. There was a strange mixture of
bitterness and benevolence in her uncle's reply:

"Yes, you certainly take after your mother--she would never have
anything to do with us. But I couldn't take Damie alone along with me,
even if he wanted to go; for a long time he wouldn't be able to do
anything but eat bread, whereas you would have been able to earn it
too."

Amrei replied that she preferred to do that here at home for the
present, but that if her uncle remained in the same mind, she and her
brother would come to him at some future time. Indeed, the interest her
uncle now expressed for the children, for a moment, almost made her
waver in her resolution, but in her characteristic way she did not
venture to show any signs of it. She merely said:

"Give my love to your children, and tell them I feel very sorry about
never having seen my nearest relatives; and especially now that they are
going across the seas, since perhaps I shall never see them in my life."

Then her uncle stood up quickly, and commissioned Amrei to give his love
to Damie, for he himself had no time to wait to bid him farewell. And
with that he went away.

When Damie came soon afterward and heard of his uncle's departure, he
wanted to run after him, and even Amrei felt a similar impulse. But she
restrained herself and did not yield to it. She spoke and acted as if
she were obeying some one's command in every word she said and in every
movement she made; and yet her thoughts were wandering along the road by
which her uncle had gone. She walked through the village, leading her
brother by the hand, and nodded to all the people she met. She felt just
as if she had been away and was now returning to them all. Her uncle
had wanted to tear her away, and she thought that everybody else must be
as glad that she had not gone, as she was herself. But she soon found
out that they would not only have been glad to let her go, but that they
were positively angry with her because she had not gone. Crappy Zachy
opened his eyes wide at her and said:

"Child, you have an obstinate head of your own--the whole village is
angry with you for spurning your good fortune. Still, who knows whether
it would have been good fortune? But they call it so now, at any rate,
and everybody that looks at you casts it up to you how much you receive
from the parish. So make haste and get yourself off the public charity
lists."

"But what am I to do?"

"Farmer Rodel's wife would like to have you in her service, but the old
man won't listen to it."

Amrei very likely felt that henceforward she would have to be doubly
brave, in order to escape the reproaches of her own conscience, as well
as those of others; and so she asked again:

"Don't you know of anything at all?"

"Yes, certainly; but you must not be ashamed of anything--except
begging. Have you not heard that foolish Fridolin yesterday killed two
geese belonging to a farmer's wife? The goosekeeper's place is vacant,
and I advise you to take it."

It was soon done. That very noon Amrei drove the geese out to the
Holderwasen, as the pasture on the little hill by the King's Well was
called. Damie loyally helped his sister in doing it.

Black Marianne, however, was very much put out about this new service,
and declared, not without reason:

"It's something that's remembered against a person an entire lifetime to
have had such a place. People never forget it, and always refer to it;
and later on every one will think twice about taking you into their
service, because they will say: 'Why, that's the goose-girl!' And if any
one does take you, out of compassion, you'll get low wages and bad
treatment, and they'll always say: 'Oh, that's good enough for a
goose-girl.'"

"I won't mind that," replied Amrei; "and you have told me hundreds of
times about how a goose-girl became a queen."

"That was in olden times. But who knows?--you belong to the old world.
Sometimes it seems to me that you are not a child at all, and who knows,
you old-fashioned soul, if a wonder won't happen in your case?"

This hint that she had not yet stood upon the lowest round of the ladder
of honor, but that there was a possibility of her descending even lower
that she was, startled Amrei. For herself she thought nothing of it, but
from that time forth she would not allow Damie to keep the geese with
her. He was a man--or was to be one--and it might do him harm if it were
said of him, later on, that he had kept geese. But, to save her soul,
she could not make this clear to him, and he refused to listen to her.
For it is always thus; at the point where mutual understanding ends,
vexation begins; the inward helplessness translates itself into a
feeling of outward injustice and injury.

Amrei, nevertheless, was almost glad that Damie could remain angry with
her for so many days; for it showed that he was learning how to stand up
against the world and to assert his own will.

Damie, however, soon got a place for himself. He was employed by his
guardian, Farmer Rodel, in the capacity of scarecrow, an occupation
which required him to swing a rattle in the farmer's orchard all day
long, for the purpose of frightening the sparrows away from the early
cherries and vegetable-beds. At first this duty appealed to him as
sport, but he soon grew tired of it and gave it up.

It was a pleasant, but at the same time a laborious office that Amrei
had undertaken. And it often seemed especially hard to her that she
could do nothing to attach the creatures to her; indeed, they were
hardly to be distinguished from one another. And it was not at all an
idle remark that Black Marianne made to her one day when she returned
from Mossbrook Wood:

"Animals that live in flocks and herds," she said, "if you take each one
separately, are always stupid."

"I think so, too," replied Amrei. "These geese are stupid because they
know how to do too many different things. They can swim, and run, and
fly, but they are not really at home either in the water, or on land, or
in the air. That's what makes them stupid."

"I still maintain," replied Marianne, "that there's the making of an old
hermit in you."

The Holderwasen was not one of those lonely, sequestered spots which the
world of fiction seems to select for its gleaming, glittering legends.
Through the centre of the Holderwasen ran a road to Endringen, and not
far from it stood the many-colored boundary-stakes with the
coats-of-arms of the two sovereign princes whose dominions came together
here. In rustic vehicles of all kinds the peasants used to drive past,
and men, women, and children kept passing to and fro with hoe, scythe,
and sickle. The _gardes-champêtres_ of the two dominions also used to
pass by often, the barrels of their muskets shining as they approached
and gleaming long after they had passed. Amrei was almost always
accosted by the _garde-champêtre_ of Endringen as she sat by the
roadside, and he often made inquiries of her as to whether this or that
person had passed by. But she was never able to give the desired
information--or perhaps she kept it from him on purpose, on account of
the instinctive aversion the people, and especially the children, of a
village have for these men, whom they invariably look upon as the armed
enemies of the human race, going to and fro in search of some one to
devour.

Theisles Manz, who used to sit by the road breaking stones, hardly spoke
a word to Amrei; he would go sulkily from stone-heap to stone-heap, and
his knocking was more incessant than the tapping of the woodpecker in
Mossbrook Wood, and more regular than the piping and chirping of the
grasshoppers in the neighboring meadows and cloverfields.

[And so Amrei spent day after day at Holderwasen, watching the geese and
the passers-by, studying the birds and the flowers and the trees,
dreaming of her father and mother, and wondering what was in store for
Damie and herself. There was a trough of clear, fresh water by the
roadside, and Amrei used to bring a jug with her in order to offer it to
thirsty people who had nothing to drink out of.]

One day a little Bernese wagon, drawn by two handsome white horses, came
rattling along the road; a stout, upland farmer took up almost the
entire seat, which was meant for two. He drew up by the roadside and
asked:

"Girlie, have you anything one can drink out of?"

"Yes, certainly--I'll get it for you." And she went off briskly to fetch
her pitcher, which she filled with water.

"Ah!" said the farmer, stopping to take breath after a long draught; and
with the water running down his chin, he continued, talking half into
the jug: "There's after all no water like this in all the world." And
again he raised the jug to his lips, and motioned to Amrei to keep still
while he took a second long, thirsty draught. For it is extremely
disagreeable to be addressed when you are drinking; you swallow
hurriedly and feel an oppression afterward.

The child seemed to realize this, for not until the farmer had handed
back the jug did she say:

"Yes, this is good, wholesome water; and if you would like to water your
horses, it is especially good for them--it won't give them cramps."

"My horses are warm and must not drink now. Do you come from
Haldenbrunn, my girl?"

"Yes indeed."

"And what is your name?"

"Amrei."

"And to whom do you belong?"

[Illustration: AMREI BRISKLY BROUGHT HER PITCHER FILLED WITH WATER]

"To nobody now--my father was Josenhans."

"What! Josenhans, who served at Farmer Rodel's?"

"Yes."

"I knew him well. It was too bad that he died so soon. Wait, child--I'll
give you something." He drew a large leather bag out of his pocket,
groped about in it for a long time, and said at last: "There, take
this."

"No, thank you--I don't accept presents--I'll take nothing."

"Take it--you can accept it from me all right. Is Farmer Rodel your
guardian?"

"Yes."

"He might have done something better than make a goose-girl of you.
Well, God keep you."

Away rolled the wagon, and Amrei found herself alone with a coin in her
hand.

"'You can accept it from me all right.'--Who was he that he could say
that? And why didn't he make himself known? Why, it's a groschen, and
there's a bird on it. Well, it won't make him poor, nor me rich."

The rest of that day Amrei did not offer her pitcher to any one else;
she was afraid of having something given to her again. When she got home
in the evening, Black Marianne told her that Farmer Rodel had sent for
her, and that she was to go over to him directly.

Amrei hastened to his house, and as she entered, Farmer Rodel called out
to her:

"What have you been saying to Farmer Landfried?"

"I don't know any Farmer Landfried."

"He was with you at the Holderwasen today, and gave you something."

"I did not know who he was--and here's his money still."

"I've nothing to do with that. Now, say frankly and honestly, you
tiresome child, did I persuade you to be a goose-keeper? If you don't
give it up this very day, I'm no guardian of yours. I won't have such
things said of me!"

"I'll let everybody know that it was not your fault--but give it up is
something I can't do. I must stick to it, at any rate for the rest of
the summer--I must finish what I have begun."

"You're a crabbed creature," said the farmer; and he walked out of the
room. But his wife, who was lying ill in bed, called out:

"You're quite right--stay just as you are. I prophesy that it will go
well with you. A hundred years from now they will be saying in this
village of one who has done well: 'He has the fortune of Brosi's Severin
and of Josenhans' Amrei.' Your dry bread will fall into the honey-pot
yet."

Farmer Rodel's sick wife was looked upon as crazy; and, as if frightened
by a specter, Amrei hurried away without a word of reply.

Amrei told Black Marianne that a wonder had happened to her; Farmer
Landfried, whose wife she so often thought about, had spoken to her and
had taken her part in a talk with Farmer Rodel, and had given her
something. She then displayed the piece of money, and Marianne called
out, laughing:

"Yes, I might have guessed myself that it was Farmer Landfried. That's
just like him--to give a poor child a bad groschen!"

"Why is it bad?" asked Amrei; and the tears came into her eyes.

"Why, that's a bird groschen--they're not worth full value--they're
worth only a kreutzer and a half."

"Then he intended to give me only a kreutzer and a half," said Amrei
decidedly.

And here for the first time an inward contrast showed itself between
Amrei and Black Marianne. The latter almost rejoiced at every bad thing
she heard about people, whereas Amrei put a good construction on
everything. She was always happy, and no matter how frequently in her
solitude she burst into tears, she never expected anything, and hence
everything that she received was a surprise to her, and she was all the
more thankful for it.

[Amrei hoped that her meeting with Farmer Landfried would result in his
coming to take her to live with him, but she hoped in vain, for she
watched the geese all summer long, and did not see or hear of him
again.]




CHAPTER VI

THE WOMAN WHO BAKED HER OWN BREAD


A woman who leads a solitary, isolated life and bakes bread for herself
quite alone, is called an "Eigenbrötlerin" (a woman who bakes her own
bread), and such a woman, as a rule, has all kinds of peculiarities. No
one had more right or more inclination to be an "Eigenbrötlerin" than
did Black Marianne, although she never had anything to bake; for oatmeal
and potatoes and potatoes and oatmeal were the only things she ever ate.
She always lived by herself, and did not like to associate with other
people. Only along toward autumn did she become restless and impatient;
about that time of the year she would talk to herself a great deal, and
would often accost people of her own accord, especially strangers who
happened to be passing through the village. For she was anxious to find
out whether the masons from this or that place had yet returned home for
the winter, and whether they had brought news of her John. While she was
once more boiling and washing the linen she had been bleaching all
summer long, for which purpose she remained up all night, she would
always be muttering to herself. No one could understand exactly what she
said, but the burden of it was intelligible, for it was always: "That is
for me, and that is for thee." She was in the habit of saying twelve
Paternosters daily for her John, but on this particular washing-night
they became innumerable. When the first snow fell she was always
especially cheerful; for then there could be no more outdoor work, and
then he would be most likely to come home. At these times she would
often talk to a white hen which she kept in a coop, telling it that it
would have to be killed when John came. She had repeated these
proceedings for many years, and people never ceased telling her that
she was foolish to be thus continually thinking of the return of her
John.

This autumn it would be eighteen years since John had gone away, and
every year John Michael Winkler was reported in the paper as missing,
which would be done until his fiftieth year--he was now in his
thirty-sixth. The story circulated in the village that John had gone
among the gipsies. Once, indeed, his mother had mistaken a young gipsy
for him; he was a man who bore a striking resemblance to her missing
son, in that he was small of stature and had the same dark complexion;
and he had seemed rather pleased at being taken for John. But the mother
had put him to the proof, for she still had John's hymn-book and his
confirmation verse; and, inasmuch as the stranger did not know this
verse and could not tell who were his sponsors, or what had happened to
him on the day when Brosi's Severin arrived with his English wife, and
later on when the new well was dug at the town-hall--inasmuch as he did
not satisfy these and other proofs, he could not be the right man. And
yet Marianne used to give the gipsy a lodging whenever he came to the
village, and the children in the streets used to cry "John!" after him.

John was advertised as being liable to military duty and as a deserter;
and although his mother declared that he would have slipped through
under the measuring-stick as "too short," she knew that he would not
escape punishment if he returned, and inferred that this was the reason
why he did not return. And it was very strange to hear her praying,
almost in the same breath, for the welfare of her son and the death of
the reigning prince; for she had been told that when the sovereign died,
his successor would proclaim a general amnesty for all past offenses.

Every year Marianne used to ask the schoolmaster to give her the page in
the newspaper in which her John was advertised for, and she always put
it with his hymn-book. But this year it was a good thing that Marianne
could not read, so that the schoolmaster could send her another page in
place of the one she wanted. For a strange rumor was going through the
whole village; whenever two people stood together talking, they would be
saying:

"Black Marianne must not be told anything about it. It would kill
her--it would drive her crazy."

For a report, coming from the Ambassador in Paris, had passed through a
number of higher and lower officers, until it reached the Village
Council; it stated that, according to a communication received from
Algiers, John Winkler of Haldenbrunn had perished in that colony during
an outpost skirmish. There was much talk in the village of the singular
fact that so many in high departments should have concerned themselves
so much about the dead John. But this stream of well-confirmed
information was arrested before it had reached the end of its course.

At a meeting of the Village, Council it was determined that nothing at
all should be said to Black Marianne about it. It would be wrong, they
said, to embitter the last few years of her life by taking her one
comfort away from her.

But instead of keeping the report secret, the first thing the members of
the Council did was to talk of it in their homes, and it was not long
before the whole village knew about it, excepting only Black Marianne.
Every one, afraid of betraying the secret to her, looked at her with
strange glances; no one addressed her, and even her greetings were
scarcely returned. It was only Marianne's peculiar disposition that
prevented her from noticing this. And indeed, if any one did speak to
her and was drawn on to say anything about John's death, it was done in
the conjectural and soothing way to which she had been accustomed for
years; and Marianne did not believe it now any more than she had
formerly, because nobody ever said anything definite about the report of
his decease.

It would have been better if Amrei had known nothing about it, but there
was a strange, seductive charm in getting as close as possible to a
subject that was forbidden. Accordingly every one spoke to Amrei of the
mournful event, warned her not to tell Black Marianne anything about
it, and asked if the mother had no presentiments or dreams of her son's
death--if his spirit did not haunt the house. After she heard of it
Amrei was always trembling and quaking in secret; for she alone was
always near Black Marianne, and it was terrible to know something which
she was obliged to conceal from her. Even the people in whose house
Black Marianne had rented a small room could no longer bear to have her
near them, and they showed their sympathy by giving her notice to quit.

But how strangely things are associated in this life! As a result of
this very thing Amrei experienced joy as well as grief--for it opened up
her parents' home to her again. Black Marianne went to live there, and
Amrei, who at first trembled as she went back and forth in the house,
carrying water or making a fire, always thinking that now her father and
mother must come, afterward began gradually to feel quite at home in it.
She sat spinning day and night, until she had earned enough money to buy
back her parents' cuckoo-clock from Coaly Mathew. Now she had at least
one household article of her own! But the cuckoo had fared badly among
strangers; it had lost half of its voice, and the other half seemed to
stick in its throat--it could only cry "cook"--and as often as it did
that, Amrei would involuntarily add the missing "oo."

       *       *       *       *       *

Black Marianne could not bear to hear the clock cuckoo and fixed the
pendulum so that it would not work, saying that she always had the time
in her head. And it was indeed wonderful how true this was--at any
minute she could tell what time it was, although it was of very little
consequence to her. In fact, this waiting, expectant woman possessed a
remarkable degree of alertness, for as she was always listening to hear
her son coming, she was naturally wide-awake all the time. And, although
she never visited anybody in the village, and spoke to nobody, she knew
everybody, and all about the most secret things that went on in the
place. She could infer a great deal from the manner in which people met
one another, and from words she overheard here and there. And because
this seemed very wonderful, she was feared and avoided. She often used
to describe herself, according to a local expression, as an
"old-experienced" woman, and yet she was exceedingly active. Every day,
year in and year out, she ate a few juniper berries, and people said
that was the reason why she was so vigorous and showed her sixty-six
years so little. The fact that the two sixes stood together caused her,
according to an old country saying[3] (which, however, was not
universally believed in) to be regarded as a witch. It was said that she
sometimes milked her black goat for hours at a time, and that this goat
gave an astonishing quantity of milk, but that in milking this goat she
was in reality drawing the milk out of the udders of the cows belonging
to persons she hated, and that she had an especial grudge against Farmer
Rodel's cattle. Moreover, Marianne's successful poultry-keeping was also
looked upon as witchcraft; for where did she get the food, and how was
it that she always had chickens and eggs to sell? It is true that in
the summer she was often seen collecting cock-chafers, grasshoppers, and
all kinds of worms, and on moonless nights she was seen gliding like a
wil-o'-the-wisp among the graves in the churchyard, where she would be
carrying a burning torch and collecting the large black worms that crept
out, all the time muttering to herself. It was even said that in the
quiet winter nights she held wonderful conversations with her goat and
with her fowls, which she housed in her room during the winter. The
entire wild army of tales of witchcraft and sorcery, banished by school
education, came back and attached itself to Black Marianne.

Amrei sometimes felt afraid in the long, silent winter nights, when she
sat spinning by Black Marianne, and nothing was heard but an occasional
sleepy clucking from the fowls, or a dreamy bleat from the goat. And it
seemed truly magical how fast Marianne spun! She even said once:

"I think my John is helping me to spin." And then again she complained
that this winter, for the first time, she had not thought wholly and
solely of her John. She took her self to task for it and called herself
a bad mother, and complained that it seemed all the time as if the
features of her John were slowly vanishing before her--as if she were
forgetting what he had done at such and such a time, how he had laughed,
sung, and wept, and how he had climbed the tree and jumped into the
ditch.

       *       *       *       *       *

But however cheerfully and brightly Marianne might begin to speak, she
always ended by relapsing into gloomy complaint and mourning; and she
who professed to like to be alone and to think of nothing and to love
nothing, only lived to think about her son and to love him. Consequently
Amrei made up her mind to release herself from this uncanny position of
being alone with Black Marianne; she demanded that Damie should be taken
into the house. At first Marianne opposed it vehemently, but when Amrei
threatened to leave the house herself, and then coaxed her in such a
childlike way and tried so hard to do whatever would best please her,
the old woman at last consented.

Damie, who had learned from Crappy Zachy to knit wool, now sat beneath
the parental roof again; and at night, when the brother and sister were
asleep in the garret, each one of them would wake the other when they
heard Black Marianne down stairs, running to and fro and muttering to
herself. But Damie's transmigration to Black Marianne's was the cause of
new trouble. Damie was exceedingly discontented at having been compelled
to learn a miserable trade that was fit only for a cripple. He wanted to
be a mason, and although Amrei was very much opposed to it, for she
predicted that he would not keep at it, Black Marianne supported him in
it. She would have liked to make all the young lads masons, and then to
have sent them out on their travels that they might bring back news of
her John.

Black Marianne seldom went to church, but she always liked to have
anybody else borrow her hymn-book and take it to church--it seemed to
give her a kind of pleasure to have it there. She was especially pleased
when any strange workman, who happened to be employed in the village,
borrowed the hymn-book which John had left behind him for that purpose;
for it seemed to her as if John himself were praying in his native
church, when the words were spoken and sung out of his book. And now
Damie was obliged to go to church twice every Sunday with John's
hymn-book.

While Marianne did not go to church herself, she was always to be seen
at every solemn ceremony in the village or in any of the surrounding
villages. There was never a funeral which Marianne did not attend as one
of the mourners; and at the funeral sermon, and the blessing spoken over
the grave, even of a little child, she always wept so violently that one
would have thought she was the nearest relative. On the way home,
however, she was always especially cheerful, for this weeping seemed to
be a kind of relief to her; all the year round she had to suppress so
much secret sorrow, that she felt thankful for an opportunity to give
vent to her feelings.

Could people be blamed if they shunned her as an uncanny person,
especially as they were keeping a secret from her? The habit of avoiding
Black Marianne was partly extended to Amrei herself; in several houses
where the girl called to offer help or sympathy she was made to see
distinctly that her presence was not desired, especially as she herself
was beginning to show certain eccentricities which astonished the whole
village; for example, except on the coldest winter days she used to go
barefoot, and people said that she must know some secret method to
prevent herself from catching cold and dying.

Only in the house of Farmer Rodel were they glad to have her, for the
farmer was her guardian. His wife, who had always taken Amrei's part and
who had one day promised to take her into her service when she was
older, was prevented from carrying out this plan. She herself was taken
by another--Death. The heaviness of life is generally felt in later
years, when one friend after another has been called away, and only a
name and a memory remains. But it was Amrei's lot to experience this in
her youth; and it was she and Black Marianne who wept more bitterly than
any of the others at the funeral of Farmer Rodel's wife.

Farmer Rodel was always complaining about how hard it was that he should
have to give up his property so soon, although not one of his three
children was yet married. But hardly a year had passed, and Damie had
not yet worked a full year in the quarry, when the celebration of a
double wedding was announced in the village; for Farmer Rodel's eldest
daughter and his only son were to be married on the same day. On this
day Farmer Rodel was to give over his property to his son, and at this
wedding it was fated that Amrei should acquire a new name and be
introduced into a new life.

In the space before the large dancing-floor the children were assembled,
and while the grown-up people were dancing and enjoying themselves
within, the children were imitating them outside. But, strange to say,
no boy and no girl would dance with Amrei. No one knew who said it
first, but a voice was heard to call out:

"No one will dance with you-you're Little Barefoot!" and "Barefoot!
Barefoot! Barefoot!" was echoed on all sides. Amrei was ready to weep;
but here again she quickly made use of the power which enabled her to
ignore insult and injury. Suppressing her tears, she seized her apron by
the two ends and danced around by herself so gracefully and prettily,
that all the children stopped to look at her. And presently the grown-up
people were nodding to one another, and a circle of men and women was
formed around Amrei. Farmer Rodel, in particular, who on this day was
eating and drinking with double relish, snapped his fingers and whistled
the waltz the musicians were playing, while Amrei went on dancing and
seemed to know no weariness. When at last the music ceased, Farmer Rodel
took Amrei by the hand and said:

"You clever girl, who taught you to do that so well?"

"Nobody."

"Why don't you dance with any one?"

"It is better to dance alone--then one does not have to wait for
anybody, and has one's partner always at hand."

"Have you had anything from the wedding yet?" asked Farmer Rodel, with a
complacent smile.

"No."

"Then come in and eat," said the proud farmer; and he led the poor girl
into the house and sat her down at the wedding table, at which feasting
was going on all day long. Amrei did not eat much. Farmer Rodel, for a
jest, wanted to make the child tipsy, but Amrei said bravely:

"If I drink more, I shall have to be led and shall not be able to walk
alone; and Marianne says 'alone' is the best conveyance, for then the
horses are always harnessed."

All were astonished at the child's wisdom.

Young Farmer Rodel came in with his wife and asked the child, to tease
her:

"Have you brought us a wedding present? For if one eats so, one ought to
bring a wedding present."

The father-in-law, moved by an incomprehensible impulse of generosity,
secretly slipped a sixpenny piece into the child's hand. Amrei held the
coin fast in her palm, nodded to the old man, and said to the young
couple:

"I have the promise and an earnest of payment; your deceased mother
always promised me that I should serve her, and that no one else should
be nurse to her first grand-child."

"Yes, my wife always wished it," said the old farmer approvingly. And
what he had refused to do for his wife while she was alive, for fear of
having to provide for an orphan, he now did, now that he could no longer
please her with it, in order to make it appear before the people that
he was doing it out of respect for her memory. But even now he did it
not from kindness, but in the correct calculation that the orphan would
be serviceable to him, the deposed farmer who was her guardian; and the
burden of her maintenance, which would amount to more than her wages,
would fall on others and not on him.

The young couple looked at each other, and the man said:

"Bring your bundle to our house tomorrow--you can live with us."

"Very well," said Amrei, "tomorrow I will bring my bundle. But now I
should like to take my bundle with me; give me a bottle of wine, and
this meat I will wrap up and take to Marianne and my Damie."

They let Amrei have her way; but old Farmer Rodel said to her secretly:

"Give me back my sixpence--I thought you were going to give it up."

"I'll keep that as an earnest from you," answered Amrei slyly; "you
shall see, I will give you value for it." Farmer Rodel laughed to
himself half angrily, and Amrei went back to Black Marianne with money,
wine, and meat.

The house was locked; and there was a great contrast between the loud
music and noise and feasting at the wedding house, and the silence and
solitude here. Amrei knew where to wait for Marianne on her way home,
for the old woman very often went to the stone-quarry and sat there
behind a hedge for a long time, listening to the tapping of chisels and
mallets. It seemed to her like a melody, carrying her back to the times
when her John used to work there too; and so she often sat there,
listening and watching.

Sure enough, Amrei found Black Marianne there, and half an hour before
quitting time she called Damie up out of the quarry. And here among the
rocks a wedding feast was held, more merry than the one amid the noise
and music. Damie was especially joyful, and Marianne, too, was
unusually cheerful. But she would not drink a drop of the wine, for she
had declared that no wine should moisten her lips until she drank it at
her John's wedding. When Amrei told with glee how she had got a place at
young Farmer Rodel's, and was going there tomorrow, Black Marianne
started up in furious anger; picking up a stone and pressing it to her
bosom, she said:

"It would be better a thousand times that I had this in me, a stone like
this, than a living heart! Why cannot I be alone? Why did I ever allow
myself to like anybody again? But now it's all over forever! You false,
faithless child! Hardly are you able to raise your wings, than off you
fly! But it is well. I am alone, and my John shall be alone, too, when
he comes--and what I have wished would come to pass, shall never be!"

With that she ran off toward the village.

"She's a witch, after all," said Damie when she had disappeared. "I
won't drink the wine--who knows if she has not bewitched it?"

"You can drink it--she's only a strict Eigenbrötlerin and she has a
heavy cross to bear. I know how to win her back again," said Amrei,
consolingly.




CHAPTER VII

THE SISTER OF MERCY


During the next year there was plenty of life in Farmer Rodel's house.
"Barefoot," for so Amrei was now called, was handy in every way, and
knew how to make herself liked by everybody; she could tell the young
farmer's wife, who had come to the place as a stranger, what the customs
of the village were; she studied the habits and characters of those
around her and learned to adapt herself to them. She managed to do all
sorts of kindnesses to old Farmer Rodel, who could not get over his
chagrin at having had to retire so early, and grumbled all day long
about it. She told what a good girl his daughter-in-law was, only that
she did not know how to show it. And when, after scarcely a year, the
first child came, Amrei evinced so much joy at the event, and was so
handy at everything that had to be done, that all in the house were full
of her praise; but according to the fashion of such people they were
more ready to scold her for any trifling omission than to praise her
openly. But Amrei did not expect any praise. She knew so well how to
carry the little baby to its grandfather, and just when to take it away
again, that it pleased and surprised everybody. And when the baby's
first tooth came, and Amrei exhibited it to the grandfather, the old man
said:

"I will give you a sixpence for the pleasure you have given me. But do
you remember the one you stole from me at the wedding--now you may keep
it honestly."

Meanwhile Black Marianne was not forgotten. It was certainly a difficult
task to regain her favor. At first Marianne would have nothing to say to
Barefoot, whose new mistress would not allow her to go to Marianne's,
especially not with the child, as it was always feared that the witch
might do the baby some mischief. Great patience and perseverance were
required to overcome this prejudice, but it was accomplished at last.
Indeed, Little Barefoot brought matters to such a pass that Farmer Rodel
himself several times paid a visit to Black Marianne, a thing which
astonished the entire village. These visits, however, were soon
discontinued, for Marianne once said:

"I am nearly seventy years old and have got on until now without the
friendship of a farmer; and it's not worth while to make a change now."

Naturally enough Damie was often with his sister. But young Farmer Rodel
objected to this, alleging, not without reason, that it would result in
his having to feed the big boy; for in a large house like his one could
not see whether a servant was not giving him all kinds of things to eat.
He therefore forbade Damie to come to the house, except on Sunday
afternoons.

Damie, however, had already seen too much of the comfort of living in a
wealthy farmer's house; his mouth watered for the flesh-pots, and he
wanted to stay there, if only as a servant. Stone-chipping was such a
hungry life. But Barefoot had many objections to make. She told him to
remember that he was already learning a second trade, and that he ought
to keep at it; that it was a mistake to be always wanting to begin
something new, and then to suppose that one could be happy in that way.
She said that one must be happy in the place where one was, if one was
ever to be happy at all. Damie allowed himself to be persuaded for a
time. And so great was the acknowledged authority of Little Barefoot
already, and so natural did it seem that she should dictate to her
brother, that he was always called "Barefoot's Damie," as if he were not
her brother, but her son. And yet he was a head taller than she, and did
not act as if he were subordinate to her. Indeed, he often expressed his
annoyance that he was not considered as good as she, merely because he
did not have a tongue like hers in his head. His discontent with himself
and with his trade he always vented first on his sister. She bore it
patiently, and because he showed before the world that she was obliged
to give him his way, she really gained more influence and power through
this very publicity. For everybody said that it was very good of Amrei
to do what she did for her brother, and she rose in the public
estimation by letting him treat her thus unkindly, while she in turn
cared for him like a mother. She washed and darned for him at night so
steadily, that he was one of the neatest boys in the village; and
instead of taking two stout pairs of shoes, which she received as part
of her wages every half year, she always paid the shoemaker a little
extra money to make two pairs for Damie, while she herself went
barefoot; it was only on Sunday, when she went to church, that she was
seen wearing shoes at all.

Little Barefoot was exceedingly annoyed to find that Damie, though no
one knew why, had become the general butt of all the joking and teasing
in the village. She took him sharply to task for it, and told him he
ought not to tolerate it; but he retorted that she ought to speak to the
people about it, and not to him, for he could not stand up against it.
But that was not to be done--in fact, Damie was secretly not
particularly annoyed by being teased everywhere he went. Sometimes,
indeed, it hurt him to have everybody laugh at him, and to have boys
much younger than himself take liberties with him, but it annoyed him a
great deal more to have people take no notice of him at all, and he
would then try to make a fool of himself and expose himself to insult.

Barefoot, on the other hand, was certainly in some danger of developing
into the hermit Marianne had always professed to recognize in her. She
had once attached herself to one single companion, the daughter of Coaly
Mathew; but this girl had been away for years, working in a factory in
Alsace, and nothing was ever heard of her now. Barefoot lived so
entirely by herself that she was not reckoned at all among the young
people of the village; she was friendly and sociable with those of her
own age, but her only real playmate was Black Marianne. And just because
Barefoot lived so much by herself, she had no influence upon the
behavior of Damie, who, however much he might be teased and tormented,
always had to have the company of others, and could never be alone like
his sister.

But now Damie suddenly emancipated himself; one fine Sunday he exhibited
to his sister some money he had received as an earnest from
Scheckennarre, of Hirlingen, to whom he had hired himself out as a
farmhand.

"If you had spoken to me about it first," said Barefoot, "I could have
told you of a better place. I would have given you a letter to Farmer
Landfried's wife in Allgau; and there you would have been treated like a
son of the family."

"Oh, don't talk to me about her!" said Damie crossly. "She has owed me a
pair of leather breeches she promised me for nearly thirteen years.
Don't you remember?--when we were little, and thought we had only to
knock, and mother and father would open the door. Don't talk to me of
Dame Landfried! Who knows whether she ever thinks of us, or indeed if
she is still alive?"

"Yes, she's alive--she's related to the family which I serve, and they
often speak of her. And all her children are married, except one son,
who is to have the farm."

"Now you want to make me feel dissatisfied with my new place," said
Damie complainingly, "and you go and tell me that I might have had a
better one. Is that right?" And his voice faltered.

"Oh, don't be so soft-hearted all the time!" said Barefoot. "Is what I
said going to take away any of your good fortune? You are always acting
as if the geese were biting you. And now I will only tell you one thing,
and that is, that you should hold fast to what you have, and remain
where you are. It's no use to be like a cuckoo, sleeping on a different
tree every night. I, too, could get other places, but I won't; I have
brought it about that I am well off here. Look you, he who is every
minute running to another place will always be treated like a
stranger--people know that tomorrow he perhaps won't belong to the
house, and so they don't make him at home in it today."

"I don't need your preaching," said Damie, and he started to go away in
anger. "You are always scolding me, and toward everybody else in the
world you are good-natured."

"That's because you are my brother," said Barefoot, laughing and
caressing the angry boy.

In truth, a strange difference had developed itself between brother and
sister; Damie had a certain begging propensity, and then again the next
minute showed a kind of pride; Barefoot, on the other hand, was always
good-natured and yielding, but was nevertheless supported by a certain
self-respect, which was never detracted from by her willingness to work
and oblige.

She now succeeded in pacifying her brother, and said:

"Look, I have an idea. But first you must be good, for the coat must not
lie on an angry heart. Farmer Rodel still has in his possession our dear
father's clothes; you are tall now, and they will just fit you. Now it
will give you a good appearance if you arrive at the farm in such
respectable clothes; then your fellow-servants will see where you come
from, and what worthy parents you had."

Damie saw that this was sensible, and Barefoot induced old Farmer
Rodel--with considerable difficulty, for he did not want to give up the
clothes so soon--to hand the garments over to Damie. Barefoot at once
took him up to her room and made him put on his father's coat and vest
then and there. He objected, but when Amrei had set her heart on a
thing, it had to be done. The hat, alone, Damie could not be induced to
wear; when he had put on the coat, Amrei laid her hand on his shoulder
and said:

"There, now you are my brother and my father, and now the coat is going
to be worn again with a new man in it. Look, Damie,--you have there the
finest coat of honor in the world; hold it in honor, and be as worthy
and honest in it as our dear father was."

She could say no more. She laid her head on her brother's shoulder, and
tears fell upon the paternal coat which had once more been brought to
light.

"You say that I am soft-hearted," said Damie, "and you are much worse
yourself."

And Barefoot was indeed deeply and quickly moved by anything; but she
was strong and light-hearted like a child. It was true of her, what
Marianne had observed when she went to sleep for the first time in the
old woman's house; she was waking and sleeping, laughing and weeping,
almost all at the same time. Every occurrence and every emotion affected
her very strongly, but she soon got over it and recovered her balance.

She continued to weep.

"You make one's heart so heavy," said Damie complainingly.

[Illustration: TEARS FELL UPON THE PATERNAL COAT]

"It's hard enough to have to go away from one's home and live among
strangers. You ought rather to cheer me up, than to be so--so--."

"Right thinking is the best cheer," replied Amrei. "It does not weigh
upon the heart at all. But you are right--you have enough to bear; a
single pound added to the load might crush you. I am foolish after all.
But come--let us see now what the sun has to say, when father walks out
in its light once more. No, I didn't mean to say that. Come, you
yourself surely know where we must go, and what you must take leave of;
for even if you are going only a couple of miles away, still you are
going away from the village, and you must bid it good-by. It's hard
enough for me that I am not to have you with me any longer--no, I mean
that I am not to be with you any longer, for I don't want to rule over
you, as people say I do. Yes, yes,--old Marianne was right; _alone_ is a
great word; one can't possibly learn all that it means. As long as you
were living on the other side of the street, even if I did not see you
for a week at a time, it did not matter; for I could have you at any
moment, and that was as good as living together. But now--well, it's not
out of the world, after all. But remember, don't try to lift too much,
or hurt yourself in your work. And when any of your things are torn,
send them to me--I'll mend them for you, and continue to knit for you.
And now, come, let us go to the churchyard."

Damie objected to this plan, making the plea that he felt the parting
heavy enough, and did not want to make it any heavier. His sister gave
in. He took off his father's clothes again, and Barefoot packed them in
the sack she had once worn as a cloak in the days when she kept the
geese. This sack still bore her father's name upon it, and she charged
Damie specially to send her back the sack at the first opportunity.

The brother and sister went out together. A cart belonging to Hirlingen
was passing through the village; Damie hailed it, and quickly loaded his
possessions on it. Then he walked with his sister, hand in hand, out of
the village, and Barefoot sought to cheer him up by saying:

"Do you remember the riddle I asked you there by the oven?"

"No."

"Think: What is best about the oven?"

"No."

  "Of the oven this is best, 'tis said,
  That it never itself doth eat the bread."

"Yes, you can be cheerful--you're going to stay home."

"But it was your own wish to go away. And you can be cheerful, too, if
you only try hard enough."

In silence she walked on with her brother to the Holderwasen. There,
under the wild pear-tree, she said:

"Here we will say good-by. God bless you, and don't be afraid of
anything!"

They shook hands warmly, and then Damie walked on toward Hirlingen, and
Barefoot turned back toward the village. Not until she got to the foot
of the hill, where Damie could not see her, did she venture to lift up
her apron and wipe away the tears that were running down her cheeks.

[Amrei and Damie were separated for three years. During this time the
girl made herself more and more liked and respected by everybody, not
only on account of her pleasant ways and general helpfulness, but also
on account of her self-sacrificing devotion to her unappreciative
brother. While her going barefoot and having been a goose-girl caused
her to be the victim of more or less raillery, still nobody meant it at
all seriously unless it was Rose, Farmer Rodel's youngest daughter, who
was jealous of Amrei's popularity. One day when Amrei was standing by
her window, she heard the fire-bell ringing.]

"There's a fire at Scheckennarre's, at Hirlingen!" was the cry outside.
The engine was brought out, and Barefoot climbed upon it and rode away
with the firemen.

"My Damie! My Damie!" she kept repeating to herself in great alarm. But
it was day-time, and in the day-time people could not be burned to
death in a fire. And sure enough, when they arrived at Hirlingen, the
house was already in ashes. Beside the road, in an orchard, stood Damie
in the act of tying two piebalds,--fine, handsome horses,--to a tree;
and oxen, bulls, and cows were all running about in confusion.

They stopped the engine to let Barefoot get off, and with a cry of "God
be praised that nothing has happened to you!" she hurried toward her
brother. Damie, however, made no reply, and stood with both hands
resting on the neck of one of the horses.

"What is it? Why don't you speak? Have you hurt yourself?"

"I have not hurt myself, but the fire has hurt me."

"What's the matter?"

"All I have is lost--all my clothes and my little bit of money! I've
nothing now but what's on my back."

"And are father's clothes burnt too?"

"Are they fireproof?" replied Damie, angrily. "Don't ask such stupid
questions!"

Barefoot was ready to cry at this ungracious reception by her brother;
but she quickly remembered, as if by intuition, that misfortune in its
first shock often makes people harsh, unkind, and quarrelsome. So she
merely said:

"Thank God that you have escaped with your life! Father's clothes--to be
sure, in those there's something lost that cannot be replaced--but
sooner or later they would have been worn out anyway."

"All your chattering will do no good," said Damie, still stroking the
horse. "Here I stand like a miserable outcast. If the horses here could
talk, they'd tell a different story. But I am born to misfortune--whatever
I do that's good, is of no use. And yet--" He could say no more; his voice
faltered.

"What has happened?"

"There are the horses, and the cows, and the oxen--not one of them was
burned. Look, that horse over there tore my shirt when I was dragging
him out of the stable. This nigh horse here did me no harm--he knows me.
Eh, Humple, you know me, don't you? We know each other, don't we?" The
horse laid his head across the neck of the other and stared at Damie,
who went on:

"And when I joyfully went to tell the farmer that I had saved all his
cattle, he said: 'You needn't have done it--they were all well insured,
and I would have been paid good money for them.' 'Yes,' thinks I to
myself, 'but to have let the poor beasts die, is that nothing? If a
thing's paid for, is that all?' The farmer must have read in my face
what I was thinking of, for he says to me: 'Of course, you saved your
clothes and your property?' And then I says: 'No, not a stitch. I ran
out to the stable directly.' And then he says: 'You're a noodle!'
'What?' says I, 'You're insured?--Well then, if the cattle would have
been paid for, my clothes shall be paid for--and some of my dead
father's clothes were among them, and fourteen guilders, and my watch,
and my pipe.' And says he: 'Go smoke it! My property is insured, but not
my servant's property.' And I says: 'We'll see about that--I'll take it
to court!' Whereupon he says: 'Now you may go at once. Threatening a
lawsuit is the same as giving notice. I would have given you a few
guilders, but now you shan't have a farthing. And now, hurry up--away
with you!' And so here I am. And I think I ought to take my nigh horse
with me, for I saved his life, and he would be glad to go with me,
wouldn't you? But I have never learned to steal, and I shouldn't know
what to do now. The best thing for me to do is to jump into the water.
For I shall never amount to anything as long as I live, and I have
nothing now."

"But I still have something, and I will help you out."

"No, I won't do that any longer--always depending upon you. You have a
hard enough time earning what you have."

Barefoot tried to comfort her brother, and succeeded so far that he
consented to go home with her. But they had scarcely gone a hundred
paces, when they heard something trotting along behind them. It was the
horse; he had broken loose and had followed Damie, who was obliged to
drive back the creature he was so fond of by flinging stones at it.

Damie was ashamed of his misfortune, and would hardly show his face to
any one; for it is a peculiarity of weak natures that they feel their
strength, not in their own self-respect, but always wish to show how
much they can really do by some visible achievement. Misfortune they
regard as evidence of their own weakness, and if they cannot hide it,
they hide themselves.

Damie would go no farther than the first houses in the village. Black
Marianne gave him a coat that had belonged to her slain husband; Damie
felt a terrible repugnance at putting it on, and Amrei, who had before
spoken of her father's coat as something sacred, now found just as many
arguments to prove that there was nothing in a coat after all, and that
it did not matter in the least who had once worn it.

Coaly Mathew, who lived not far from Black Marianne, took Damie as his
assistant at tree-felling and charcoal-burning. This solitary life
pleased Damie best; for he only wanted to wait until the time came when
he could be a soldier, and then he would enter the army as a substitute
and remain a soldier all his life. For in a soldier's life there is
justice and order, and no one has brothers and sisters, and no one has
his own house, and a man is provided with clothing and meat and drink;
and if there should be a war, why a brave soldier's death is after all
the best.

Such were the sentiments that Damie expressed one Sunday in Mossbrook
Wood, when Barefoot came out to the charcoal-burner's to bring her
brother yeast, and meal, and tobacco. She wanted to show him how--in
addition to the general charcoal-burner's fare, which consists of bread
baked with yeast--he might make the dumplings he prepared for himself
taste better. But Damie would not listen to her; he said he preferred to
have them just as they were--he rather liked to swallow bad food when he
might have had better; and altogether, he derived a kind of satisfaction
from self-neglect, until he should some day be decked out as a soldier.

Barefoot fought against this continual looking forward to a future time,
and this loss of time in the present. She was always wanting to put some
life into Damie, who rather enjoyed being indolent and pitying himself.
Indeed, he seemed to find a sort of satisfaction in his downward course,
for it gave him an opportunity to pity himself to his heart's content,
and did not require him to make any physical exertion. With great
difficulty Barefoot managed to prevail so far that he at least bought an
ax of his own out of his earnings; and it was his father's ax, which
Coaly Mathew had bought at the auction in the old days.

Barefoot often came back out of the Wood in profound despair, but this
state of mind never lasted long. Her inward confidence in herself, and
the natural cheerfulness that was in her, involuntarily burst forth from
her lips in song; and anybody who did not know her, would never have
thought that Barefoot either had a care then, or ever had had one in all
her life.

The satisfaction arising from the feeling that she was sturdily and
untiringly doing her duty, and acting as a Samaritan to Black Marianne
and Damie, impressed an indelible cheerfulness on her countenance; in
the whole house there was no one who could laugh so heartily as
Barefoot. Old Farmer Rodel declared that her laughter sounded like the
song of a quail, and because she was always serviceable and respectful
to him, he gave her to understand that he would remember her in his
will. Barefoot did not pay much attention to this or build much upon it;
she looked only for the wages to which she had a true and honest claim;
and what she did, she did from an inward feeling of benevolence, without
expectation of reward.




CHAPTER VIII

"SACK AND AX"


Scheckennarre's house was duly rebuilt, and in handsomer style than
before; and the winter came, and with it the drawing for recruits. Never
had there been greater lamentation over a "lucky number" than arose when
Damie drew one and was declared exempt. He was in complete despair, and
Barefoot almost shared his grief; for she looked upon this soldiering as
a capital method of setting Damie up, and of breaking him of his
slovenly habits. Still she said to him:

"Take this as a sign that you are to depend upon yourself now, and to be
a man; for you still behave like a little child that can't shift for
itself and has to be fed."

"You're reproaching me now for feeding upon you."

"No, I didn't mean that. Don't be so touchy all the time--always
standing there as if to say: 'Who's going to do anything for me, good or
bad?' Strike about for yourself."

"That's just what I am going to do, and I shall strike with a good
swing," said Damie.

For a long time he would not state what his real intention was; but he
walked through the village with his head singularly erect and spoke
freely to everybody; he worked diligently in the forest with the
woodcutters, having his father's ax and with it almost the bodily
strength of him who had swung it so sturdily in the days that were gone.

One evening in the early part of the spring, when Barefoot met him on
his way back from Mossbrook Wood, he asked, taking the ax from his
shoulder and holding it up before her:

"Where do you think this is going?"

"Into the forest," answered Barefoot. "But it won't go alone--there must
be a chopper."

"You are right; but it's going to its brother--and one will chop on
this side and another will chop on that side, and then the trees crash
and roar like cannons, and still you will hear nothing of it--and yet
_you_ may, if you wish to, but no one else in this place."

"I don't understand one peck of all your bushel," answered Barefoot.
"Speak out--I'm too old to guess riddles now."

"Well, I'm going to uncle in America."

"Indeed? Going to start to-day?" said Barefoot, laughing. "Do you remember
how Martin, the mason's boy, once called up to his mother through the
window: 'Mother, throw me out a clean pocket-handkerchief--I'm going to
America!' Those who were going to fly so quickly are all still here."

"You'll see how much longer I shall be here," said Damie; and without
another word he went into Coaly Mathew's house.

Barefoot felt like laughing at Damie's ridiculous plan, but she could
not; she felt that there was some meaning in it. And that very night,
when everybody was in bed, she went to her brother and declared once for
all that she would not go with him. She thought thus to conquer him; but
Damie replied quickly:

"I'm not tied to you!" and became the more confirmed in his plan.

Then there suddenly welled up in the girl's mind once more all that
flood of reflections that had come upon her once in her childhood; but
this time she did not ask advice of the tree, as if it could have
answered her. All her deliberations brought her to this one conclusion:
"He's right in going, and I'm right, too, in staying here." She felt
inwardly glad that Damie could make such a bold resolve--at any rate, it
showed manly determination. And although she felt a deep sorrow at the
thought of being henceforth alone in the wide world, she nevertheless
thought it right that her brother should thrust forth his hand thus
boldly and independently.

Still, she did not yet quite believe him. The next evening she waited
for him and said:

"Don't tell anybody about your plan to emigrate, or you'll be laughed at
if you don't carry it out."

"You're right," answered Damie; "but it's not for that. I'm not afraid
to bind myself before other people; so surely as I have five fingers on
this hand, so surely shall I go before the cherries are ripe here, if I
have to beg, yes, even to steal, in order to get off. There's only one
thing I'm sorry about--and that is that I must go away without playing
Scheckennarre a trick that he'd remember to the end of his days."

"That's the true braggart's way! That's the real way to ruin!" cried
Barefoot; "to go off and leave a feeling of revenge behind one! Look,
over yonder lie our parents. Come with me--come with me to their graves
and say that again there if you can. Do you know who it is that turns
out to be a no-good?--the boy who lets himself be spoiled! Give up that
ax! You are not worthy to have your hand where father had his hand,
unless you tear that thought out of your mind, root and branch! Give up
that ax! No man shall have that who talks of stealing and of murdering!
Give up that ax, or I don't know what I may do!"

Then Damie, in a frightened tone, replied:

"It was only a thought. Believe me I never intended to do it--I can't do
anything of that kind. But because they always call me "skittle-boy," I
thought I ought for once to threaten and swear and strike as they do.
But you are right; look, if you like, I'll go this very day to
Scheckennarre and tell him that my heart doesn't cherish a single hard
thought against him."

"You need not do that--that would be too much. But because you listen to
reason, I will help you all I can."

"It would be best if you went with me."

"No, I can't do that--I don't know why, but I can't. But I have not
sworn not to go--if you write to me that you are doing well at uncle's,
then I'll come after you. But to go out into the fog, where one knows
nothing--well, I'm not fond of making changes anyway, and after all I'm
doing fairly well here. But now let us consider how you are to get
away."

Damie's savings were very trifling, and Barefoot's were not enough to
make up the deficiency. Damie declared that the parish ought to give him
a handsome contribution; but his sister would not hear of it, saying
that this ought to be the last resource, when everything else had
failed. She did not explain what else she was going to try. Her first
idea, naturally, was to make application to Dame Landfried at
Zumarshofen; but she knew what a bad appearance a begging letter would
make in the eyes of the rich farmer's wife, who perhaps would not have
any ready money anyway. Then she thought of old Farmer Rodel, who had
promised to remember her in his will; could he be induced to give her
now what he intended to give her later on, even if it should be less?
Then again, it occurred to her that perhaps Scheckennarre, who was now
getting on especially well, might be induced to contribute something.

She said nothing to Damie about all this. But when she examined his
wardrobe, and with great difficulty induced Black Marianne to let her
have on credit some of the old woman's heaped-up stores of linen, and
when she began to cut out this linen and sat up at night making shirts
of it--all these steady and active preparations made Damie almost
tremble. To be sure, he had acted all along as if his plan of emigrating
were irrevocably fixed in his mind--and yet now he seemed almost bound
to go, to be under compulsion, as if his sister's strong will were
forcing him to carry out his design. And his sister seemed almost
hard-hearted to him, as if she were thrusting him away to get rid of
him. He did not, indeed, dare to say this openly, but he began to
grumble and complain a good deal about it, and Barefoot looked upon this
as suppressed grief over parting--the feeling that would gladly take
advantage of little obstacles and represent them as hindrances to the
fulfilment of a purpose one would gladly leave unfulfilled.

First of all she went to old Farmer Rodel, and in plain words asked him
to let her have at once the legacy that he had promised her long ago.

The old man replied:

"Why do you press it so? Can't you wait? What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's the matter with me, but I can't wait."

Then she told him that she was fitting out her brother who was going to
emigrate to America. This was a good chance for old Rodel; he could now
give his natural hardness the appearance of benevolence and prudent
forethought. Accordingly he declared to Barefoot that he would not give
her one farthing now, for he did not want to be responsible for her
ruining herself for that brother of hers.

Barefoot then begged him to be her advocate with Scheckennarre. At last
he was induced to consent to this; and he took great credit to himself
for thus consenting to go begging to a man he did not know on behalf of
a stranger. He kept postponing the fulfilment of his promise from day to
day, but Barefoot did not cease from reminding him of it; and so, at
last, he set forth.

But, as might have been anticipated, he came back empty-handed; for the
first thing Scheckennarre did was to ask how much Farmer Rodel himself
was going to give, and when he heard that Rodel, for the present, was
not going to give anything, his course, too, was clear and he followed
it.

When Barefoot told Black Marianne how hurt she felt at this
hard-heartedness, the old woman said:

"Yes, that's just how people are! If a man were to jump into the water
tomorrow and be taken out dead, they would all say: 'If he had only told
me what was amiss with him, I should have been very glad to help him in
every way and to have given him something. What would I not give now, if
I could restore him to life!' But to keep a man alive, they won't stir a
finger."

Strangely enough, the very fact that the whole weight of things always
fell upon Barefoot made her bear it all more easily. "Yes, one must
always depend upon oneself alone," was her secret motto; and instead of
letting obstacles discourage her, she only strove harder to surmount
them. She scraped together and turned into money whatever of her
possessions she could lay hands on; even the valuable necklace she had
received in the old days from Farmer Landfried's wife went its way to
the widow of the old sexton, a worthy woman who supported herself in her
widowhood by lending money at high interest on security; the ducat, too,
which she had once thrown after Severin in the churchyard, was brought
into requisition. And, marvelous to relate, old Farmer Rodel offered to
obtain a considerable contribution from the Village Council, of which he
was a member; he was fond of doing virtuous and benevolent things with
the public money!

Still it almost frightened Barefoot when he announced to her, after a
few days, that everything had been granted--but upon the one condition,
that Damie should entirely give up his right to live in the village. Of
course, that had been understood from the first--no one had expected
anything else; but still, now that it was an express condition, it
seemed like a very formidable matter to have no home anywhere. Barefoot
said nothing about this thought to Damie, who seemed cheerful and of
good courage. Black Marianne, especially, continued to urge him strongly
to go; for she would have been glad to send the whole village away to
foreign parts, if only she could at last get tidings of her John. And
now she had firmly taken up the notion that he had sailed across the
seas. Crappy Zachy had indeed told her, that the reason she could not
cry any more was because the ocean, the great salty deep, absorbed the
tears which one might be disposed to shed for one who was on the other
shore.

Barefoot received permission from her employers to accompany her brother
when he went to town to conclude the arrangement for his passage with
the agent. Greatly were both of them astonished when they learned, on
arriving at the office, that this had already been done. The Village
Council had already taken the necessary steps, and Damie was to have his
rights and corresponding obligations as one of the village poor. On
board the ship, before it sailed out into the wide ocean, he would have
to sign a paper, attesting his embarkation, and not until then would the
money be paid.

The brother and sister returned sorrowfully to the village. Damie had
been seized with a fit of his old despondency, because a thing had now
to be carried out which he himself had wished. And Barefoot herself felt
deeply grieved at the thought that her brother was, in a way, to be
expelled from his native land. At the boundary-line Damie said aloud to
the sign-post, on which the name of the village and of the district were
painted:

"You there! I don't belong to you any longer, and all the people who
live here are no more to me than you are."

Barefoot started to cry; but she resolved within herself that this
should be the last time until her brother's departure, and until he was
fairly gone. And she kept her word to herself.

The people in the village said that Barefoot had no heart, because her
eyes were not wet when her brother went away. People like to see tears
actually shed--for what do they care about those that are shed in
secret? But Barefoot was calm and brave.

Only during the last days before Damie set out did she for the first
time fail in her duty; for she neglected her work by being with Damie
all the time. She let Rose upbraid her for it, and merely said: "You are
right." But still she ran after her brother everywhere--she did not want
to lose a minute of his company as long as he was there. She very likely
felt that she might be able to do something special for him at any
moment, or say something special that would be of use to him all his
life; and she was vexed with herself for finding nothing but quite
ordinary things to say, and for even quarreling with him sometimes.

Oh, these hours of parting! How they oppress the heart! How all the past
and all the future seem crowded together into one moment, and one knows
not how to set about anything rightly, and only a look or a touch must
tell all that is felt!

Still Amrei found good words to speak. When she counted out her
brother's stock of linen she said:

"These are good, respectable shirts--keep yourself respectable and good
in them."

And when she packed everything into the big sack, on which her father's
name was still to be seen, she said:

"Bring this back full of glittering gold; then you shall see how glad
they will be to give you back the right to live here. And Farmer Rodel's
Rose, if she's still unmarried, will jump over seven houses to get you."

And when she laid their father's ax in the large chest, she said:

"How smooth the handle is! How often it has slipped through our father's
hand. I fancy I can still feel his touch upon it! So now I have a motto
for you--'Sack and Ax.' Working and gathering in, those are the best
things in life--they make one keep cheerful and well and happy. God keep
you! And say to yourself very often--'Sack and Ax.' I shall do the same,
and that shall be our motto, our remembrance, our call to each other
when we are far, far apart, and until you write to me, or come to fetch
me, or do what you can, as God shall will it. 'Sack and Ax'--yes it's
all included in that; so one can treasure up everything--all thoughts
and all that one has earned!"

And when Damie was sitting up in the wagon, and for the last time gave
her his hand, for a long time she would not release it. And when at last
he drove away, she called out after him with a loud voice:

"'Sack and Ax'--don't forget that!"

He looked back, waved his hand to her, and then--he was gone.

[Illustration: HE GAVE HER HIS HAND FOR THE LAST TIME]




CHAPTER IX

AN UNINVITED GUEST


"Glory to America!" the village watchman, to the amusement of all, cried
several nights when he called out the hours, in place of the usual
thanksgiving to God. Crappy Zachy, being a man of no consideration
himself, was fond of speaking evil of the poor when he found himself
among what he called "respectable people," and on Sunday when he came
out of church, or on an afternoon when he sat on the long bench outside
the "Heathcock," he would say:

"Columbus was a real benefactor. From what did he not deliver us? Yes,
America is the pig-trough of the Old World, and into it everything that
can't be used in the kitchen is dumped--cabbage and turnips and all
sorts of things. And for the piggies who live in the castle behind the
house, and understand French--'Oui! Oui!'--there's very good feeding
there."

In the general dearth of interesting subjects, Damie and his emigrating
naturally formed the main topic of conversation for a considerable time,
and the members of the Council praised their own wisdom in having rid
the place of a person who would certainly have come to be a burden on
the community. For a man who goes driving about from one trade to
another is sure to drive himself into ruin eventually.

Of course, there were plenty of good-natured people who reported to
Barefoot all that was said of her brother, and told her how he was made
a laughing-stock. But Barefoot merely smiled. When Damie's first letter
came from Bremen--nobody had ever thought that he could write so
properly--then she exulted before the eyes of men, and read the letter
aloud several times; but in secret she was sorry to have lost such a
brother, probably forever. She reproached herself for not having put him
forward enough, for it was now evident what a sharp lad Damie was, and
so good too! He wanted to take leave of the whole village as he had
taken leave of the post at the boundary-line, and he now filled almost a
whole page with remembrances to different people, calling each one "the
dear" or "the good" or "the worthy." Barefoot reaped a great deal of
praise everywhere she delivered these greetings, and each time pointed
to the precise place, and said:

"See--there it stands!"

For a time Barefoot was silent and abstracted; she seemed to repent of
having let her brother go, or of having refused to go with him. Formerly
she had always been heard singing in the stable and barn, in the kitchen
and chamber, and when she went out with the scythe over her shoulder and
the grass-cloth under her arm; but now she was silent. She seemed to be
making an effort to restrain herself. Still there was one time when she
allowed people to hear her voice again; in the evening, when she put
Farmer Rodel's children to bed, she sang incessantly, even long after
the children were asleep. Then she would hurry over to Black Marianne's
and supply her with wood and water and whatever else the old woman
wanted.

On Sunday afternoons, when everybody was out for a good time, Barefoot
often used to stand quiet and motionless at the door of her house,
looking out into the world and at the sky in dreamy, far-off meditation,
wondering where Damie was now and how he was getting on. And then she
would stand and gaze for a long time at an overturned plow, or watch a
fowl clawing in the sand. When a vehicle passed through the village, she
would look up and say, almost aloud:

"They are driving to somebody. On all the roads of the world there is
nobody coming to me, and no one thinking of me. And do I not belong here
too?"

And then she would make believe to herself that she was expecting
something, and her heart would beat faster, as if for somebody who was
coming. And involuntarily the old song rose to her lips:

  All the brooklets in the wide world,
  They run their way to the Sea;
  But there's no one in this wide world,
  Who can open my heart for me.

"I wish I were as old as you," she once said to Black Marianne, after
dreaming in this way.

"Be glad that a wish is but a word," replied the old woman. "When I was
your age I was merry; and down there at the plaster-mill I weighed a
hundred and thirty-two pounds."

"But you are the same at one time as at another, while I am not at
all--even."

"If one wants to be 'even' one had better cut one's nose off, and then
one's face will be even all over. You little simpleton! Don't fret your
young years away, for nobody will give them back to you; and the old
ones will come of their own accord."

Black Marianne did not find it very difficult to comfort Barefoot; only
when she was alone, did a strange anxiety come over her. What did it
mean?

A wonderful rumor was now pervading the village; for many days there had
been talk of a wedding that was to be celebrated at Endringen, with such
festivities as had not been seen in the country within the memory of
man. The eldest daughter of Dominic and Ameile--whom we know, from
Lehnhold--was to marry a rich wood-merchant from the Murg Valley, and it
was said that there would be such merry-making as had never yet been
seen.

The day drew nearer and nearer. Wherever two girls meet, they draw each
other behind a hedge or into the hallway of a house, and there's no end
to their talking, though they declare emphatically that they are in a
particular hurry. It is said that everybody from the Oberland is coming,
and everybody from the Murg Valley for a distance of sixty miles! For it
is a large family. At the Town-hall pump, there the true gossiping goes
on; but not a single girl will own to having a new dress, lest she
should lose the pleasure of seeing the surprise and admiration of her
companions, when the day arrived. In the excitement of asking and
answering questions, the duty of water-carrying is forgotten, and
Barefoot, who arrives last, is the first to leave with her bucketful of
water. What is the dance to her? And yet she feels as if she hears music
everywhere.

The next day Barefoot had much running back and forth to do in the
house; for she was to dress Rose for the great occasion. She received
many an unseen knock while she was plaiting her hair, but bore them in
silence. Rose had a fine head of hair, and she was determined it should
make a fine show. Today she wished to try something new with it; she
wanted to have a Maria-Theresa braid, as a certain artistic arrangement
of fourteen braids is called in those parts. That would create a
sensation as something new. Barefoot succeeded in accomplishing the
difficult task, but she had scarcely finished when Rose tore it all down
in anger; and with her hair hanging down over her brow and face, she
looked wild enough.

But for all that she was handsome and stately, and very plump; her whole
demeanor seemed to say: "There must be not less than four horses in the
house into which I marry." And many farmers' sons were, indeed, courting
her, but she did not seem to care to make up her mind in favor of any
one of them. She now decided to keep to the country fashion of having
two braids, interwoven with red ribbons, hanging down her back and
reaching almost to the ground. At last she stood adorned and ready.

But now she had to have a nosegay. She had allowed her own flowers to
run wild; and in spite of all objections, Barefoot was ultimately
obliged to yield to her importunities and rob her own cherished plants
on her window-sill of almost all their blossoms. Rose also demanded the
little rosemary plant; but Barefoot would rather have torn that in
pieces than give it up. Rose began to jeer and laugh, and then to scold
and mock the stupid goose-girl, who gave herself such obstinate airs,
and who had been taken into the house only out of charity. Barefoot did
not reply; but she turned a glance at Rose which made the girl cast down
her eyes.

And now a red, woolen rose had come loose on Rose's left shoe, and
Barefoot had just knelt down to sew it on carefully, when Rose said,
half ashamed of her own behavior, and yet half jeeringly:

"Barefoot, I will have it so--you must come to the dance today."

"Do not mock so. What do you want of me?"

"I am not mocking," persisted Rose, still in a somewhat jeering tone.
"You, too, ought to dance once, for you are a young girl, and there will
be some of your equals at the wedding--our stable-boy is going, or
perhaps some farmer's son will dance with you. I'll send you some one
who is without a partner."

"Let me be in peace--or I shall prick you."

"My sister-in-law is right," said the young farmer's wife, who, until
now, had sat silent. "I'll never give you a good word again if you don't
go to the dance today. Come--sit down, and I will get you ready."

Barefoot felt herself flushing crimson as she sat there while her
mistress dressed her and brushed her hair away from her face and turned
it all back; and she almost sank from her chair, when the farmer's wife
said:

"I am going to arrange your hair as the Allgau girls wear it. That will
suit you very well, for you look like an Allgau girl yourself--sturdy,
and brown, and round. You look like Dame Landfried's daughter at
Zusmarshofen."

"Why like her daughter? What made you think of her?" asked Barefoot, and
she trembled all over.

How was it that she was just now reminded again of Dame Landfried, who
had been in her mind from childhood, and who had once appeared to her
like the benevolent spirit in a fairy-tale? But Barefoot had no ring
that she could turn and cause her to appear; but mentally she could
conjure her up, and that she often did, almost involuntarily.

"Hold still, or I'll pull your hair," said the farmer's wife; and
Barefoot sat motionless, scarcely daring to breathe. And while her hair
was being parted in the middle, and she sat with her arms folded and
allowed her mistress to do what she liked with her, and while her
mistress, who was expecting a baby very soon, bustled about her, she
really felt as if she had suddenly been bewitched; she did not say a
word for fear of breaking the charm, but sat with her eyes cast down in
modest submission.

"I wish I could dress you thus for your own wedding," said the farmer's
wife, who seemed to be overflowing with kindness today. "I should like
to see you mistress of a respectable farm, and you would not be a bad
bargain for any man; but nowadays such things don't happen, for money
runs after money. Well, do you be contented--so long as I live you shall
not want for anything; and if I die--and I don't know, but I seem to
fear the heavy hour so much this time--look, you will not forsake my
children, but will be a mother to them, will you not?"

"Oh, good heavens! How can you think of such a thing?" cried Barefoot,
and the tears ran down her cheeks. "That is a sin; for one may commit a
sin by letting thoughts enter one's mind that are not right."

"Yes, yes, you may be right," said the farmer's wife. "But wait--sit
still a moment; I will bring you my necklace and put it around your
neck."

"No, pray don't do that! I can wear nothing that is not my own; I should
sink to the ground for shame of myself."

"Yes, but you can't go as you are. Or have you, perhaps, something of
your own?"

Hereupon Barefoot said that she, to be sure, had a necklace which had
been presented to her as a child by Dame Landfried, but that on account
of Damie's emigration it was in pledge with the sexton's widow.

Barefoot was then told to sit still and to promise not to look at
herself in the glass until the farmer's wife returned; and the latter
hurried away to get the ornament, herself being surety for the money
lent upon it.

What a thrill now went through Barefoot's soul as she sat there! She
who had always waited upon others was now being waited upon
herself!--and indeed almost as if under a spell. She was almost afraid
of the dance; for she was now being treated so well, so kindly, and
perhaps at the dance she might be pushed about and ignored, and all her
outward adornment and inward happiness would go for nothing.

"But no," she said to herself. "If I get nothing more out of it than the
thought that I have been happy, that will be enough; if I had to undress
right now and to stay at home, I should still be happy."

The farmer's wife now returned with the necklace, and was as full of
censure for the sexton's wife for having demanded such usurious interest
from a poor girl, as she was full of praise for the ornament itself. She
promised to pay the loan that very day and to deduct it gradually from
Barefoot's wages.

Now at last Barefoot was allowed to look at herself. The mistress
herself held the glass before her, and both of their faces glowed and
gleamed with mutual joy.

"I don't know myself! I don't know myself!" Barefoot kept repeating,
feeling her face with both hands. "Good heavens, if my mother could only
see me now! But she will certainly bless you from heaven for being so
good to me, and she will stand by you in the heavy hour--you need fear
nothing."

"But now you must make another kind of face," said her mistress, "not
such a pitiful one. But that will come when you hear the music."

"I fancy I hear it already," replied Barefoot. "Yes, listen, there it
is!"

And, in truth, a large wagon decorated with green boughs was just
driving through the village. Seated in the wagon were all the musicians;
in the midst of them stood Crappy Zachy blowing his trumpet as if he
were trying to wake the dead.

And now there was no more staying in the village; every one was
hastening to be up and away. Light, Bernese carriages, with one and two
horses, some from the village itself and some from the neighboring
villages, were chasing each other as if they were racing. Rose mounted
to her brother's side on the front seat of their chaise, and Barefoot
climbed up into the basket-seat behind. So long as they were passing
through the village, she kept her eyes looking down--she felt so
ashamed. Only when she passed the house that had been her parents' did
she venture to look up; Black Marianne waved her hand from the window,
the red cock crowed on the wood-pile, and the old tree seemed to nod and
wish her good luck.

Now they drove through the valley where Manz was breaking stones, and
now over the Holderwasen where an old woman was keeping the geese.
Barefoot gave her a friendly nod.

"Good heavens!" she thought. "How does it happen that I sit here so
proudly driving along in festive attire? It is a good hour's ride to
Endringen, and yet it seems as if we had only just started."

The word was now given to alight, and Rose was immediately surrounded by
all kinds of friends. Several of them asked:

"Is that not a sister of your brother's wife?"

"No, she's only our maid," answered Rose.

Several beggars from Haldenbrunn who were here, looked at Barefoot in
astonishment, evidently not recognizing her; and not until they had
stared at her for a long time did they cry out: "Why, it's Little
Barefoot!"

"She is only our maid." That little word "only" smote painfully on the
girl's heart. But she recovered herself quickly and smiled; for a voice
within her said:

"Don't let your pleasure be spoiled by a single word. If you begin
anything new, you are sure to step on thorns at first."

Rose took Barefoot aside and said: "You may go for the present to the
dancing-room, or wherever you like, if you have any acquaintances in the
place. When the music begins I shall want to see you again."

And so Barefoot stood forsaken, as it were, and feeling as if she had
stolen the clothes she had on, and did not belong to the company at all,
as if she were an intruder.

"How comes it that thou goest to such a wedding?" she asked herself; and
she would have liked to go home again. She decided to take a walk
through the village. She passed by the beautiful house built for Brosi,
where there was plenty of life today, too; for the wife of that high
official was spending the summer here with her sons and daughters.
Barefoot turned back toward the village again, looking neither to the
right nor to the left, and yet wishing that somebody would accost her
that she might have a companion. On the outskirts of the village she
encountered a smart-looking young man riding a white horse. He was
attired in farmer's dress, but of a strange kind, and looked very proud.
He pulled up his horse, rested his right hand with the whip in it on his
hip, and patting the animal's neck with his left, called out:

"Good morning, pretty mistress! Tired of dancing already?"

"I'm tired of idle questions already," was the reply.

The horseman rode on. Barefoot sat for a long time behind a hedge, while
many thoughts flitted through her mind. Her cheeks glowed with a flush
caused by anger at herself for having made so sharp a reply to a
harmless question, by bashfulness, and by a strange, inward emotion. And
involuntarily she began to hum the old song:

  "There were two lovers in Allgau
  Who loved each other so dear."

She had begun the day in expectation of joy, and now she wished that she
were dead. She thought to herself: "How good it would be to fall asleep
here behind this hedge and never to awake again. You are not to have any
joy in this life, why should you run about so long? The grasshoppers
are chirping in the grass, a warm fragrance is rising from the earth, a
linnet is singing incessantly and seems to dive into himself with his
voice and to bring up finer and finer notes, and yet seems to be unable
to say with his whole heart what he has to say. Up in the air the larks,
too, are singing, every one for himself--no one listens to the others or
joins in with the others--and yet everything is--"

Never in her life had Amrei fallen asleep in broad daylight, or if ever,
not in the morning. She had now drawn her handkerchief over her eyes,
and the sunbeams were kissing her closed lips, which, even in sleep,
were pressed together defiantly, and the redness of her chin had become
deeper. She had slept about an hour, when she awoke with a start. The
smart-looking young man on the white horse was riding toward her, and
the horse had just lifted up his fore feet to bring them down on her
chest. It was only a dream, and Amrei gazed around her as if she had
fallen from the sky. She saw with astonishment where she was, and looked
at herself in wonder. But the sound of music from the village soon
aroused the spirit of life within her, and with new strength she walked
back and found that everything had become more lively. She noticed that
she felt more rested after the many things that she had experienced that
day. And now let only the dancing begin! She would dance until the next
morning, and never rest, and never get tired!

The fresh glow following the sleep of childhood was on her face, and
everybody looked at her in astonishment. She went to the dancing-room;
the music was playing, but in an empty room--for no dancers had come
yet. Only the girls who had been hired to wait upon the guests were
dancing with one another. Crappy Zachy looked at Barefoot for a
longtime, and then shook his head; evidently he did not know her. Amrei
crept along close to the wall, and so out of the room again. She ran
across Farmer Dominic, whose face was radiant with joy today.

"Beg pardon," said he; "does the mistress belong to the wedding guests?"

"No, I am only a maid. I came with Farmer Rodel's daughter, Rose."

"Good! Then go out to the kitchen and tell the mistress that I sent you,
and that you are to help her. We can't have hands enough in my house
today."

"Because it's you I'll gladly go," said Amrei, and she set out at once.
On the way she thought how Dominic himself had once been a servant,
and--"Yes, such things happen only once in a century. It cost him many a
pang before he came to the farm--and that's a pity."

Ameile, Dominic's wife, gave a friendly welcome to the new comer, who
offered her services and at the same time took off her jacket, asking if
she might borrow a large apron with a bib on it. But the farmer's wife
insisted that Amrei should satisfy her own hunger and thirst before she
set about serving others. Amrei consented without much ceremony, and won
Ameile's heart by the first words she spoke; for she said:

"I will fall to at once, for I must confess that I am hungry, and I
don't want to put you to the trouble of having to urge me."

Amrei now remained in the kitchen and handed the dishes to the
waitresses in such a knowing way, and managed and arranged everything so
well, that the mistress said:

"You two Amreis, you and my brother's daughter, can manage all this, and
I will stay with the guests."

Amrei of Siebenhofen, who was nicknamed the "Butter Countess," and who
was known far and wide as proud and stubborn, was very friendly with
Barefoot. Once, indeed, the mistress said to the latter:

"It's a pity that you are not a boy; I believe that Amrei would marry
you on the spot, and not send you home, as she does all of her suitors."

"I have a brother who's still single--but he's in America," replied
Barefoot, laughing.

"Let him stay there," said the Butter Countess; "it would be better if
we could send all the men folk away and be here by ourselves."

Amrei did not leave the kitchen until everything had been put back in
its proper place; and when she took off her apron it was still as white
and unruffled as when she had put it on.

"You'll be tired and not able to dance," said the farmer's wife, when
Amrei, with a present, finally took her leave.

"Why should I be tired? This was only play; and, believe me, I feel much
better for having done something today. A whole day devoted to pleasure!
I shouldn't know how to spend it, and I've no doubt that was why I felt
so sad this morning--I felt that something was missing. But now I feel
quite ready for a holiday--quite out of harness. Now I feel just like
dancing, if I could only find partners."

Ameile did not know how to show greater honor to Barefoot than by
leading her about the house, as if she were a wealthy farmer's wife, and
showing her the large chest full of wedding presents in the bridal room.
She opened the tall, blue cabinets, which had the name and the date
painted upon them, and which were crammed full of linen and all sorts of
things, all tied up with ribbons of various colors and decorated with
artificial flowers. In the wardrobe there were at least thirty dresses,
and nearby were the high beds, the cradle, the distaff with its
beautiful spindles, and everywhere children's clothes were hanging,
presents from the bride's former playmates.

"Oh, kind Heaven!" cried Barefoot; "how happy a child of such a house
must be!"

"Are you envious?" said the farmer's wife; and then remembering that she
was showing all these things to a poor girl, she added: "But believe me,
fine clothes are not all; there are many happier who do not get as much
as a stocking from their parents."

"Yes, yes, I know that. I am not envious of the beautiful things, but
rather of the privilege that it gives your child to thank you and so
many good people for the lovely things she has received from them. Such
clothes from one's mother must keep one doubly warm."

The farmer's wife showed her fondness of Barefoot by accompanying the
girl as far as the yard, as she would have done to a visitor who had
eight horses in the stable.

There was already a great crowd of people assembled when Amrei arrived
at the dancing-floor. At first she stood timidly on the threshold. In
the empty courtyard, across which somebody hurried every now and then, a
solitary gendarme was pacing up and down. When he saw Amrei coming along
with a radiant face, he approached her and said:

"Good morning, Amrei! Art thou here too?"

Amrei started and turned quite pale. Had she done anything punishable?
Had she gone into the stable with a naked light? She thought of her past
life and could remember nothing; and yet he had addressed her as
familiarly as if he had already arrested her once. With these thoughts
flitting through her mind, she stood there trembling as if she were a
criminal, and at last answered:

"Thank you. But I don't know why we should call each other 'thou.' Do
you want anything of me?"

"Oh, how proud you are. You can answer me properly. I am not going to
eat you up. Why are you so angry? Eh?"

"I am not angry, and I don't want to harm any one. I am only a foolish
girl."

"Don't pretend to be so submissive--"

"How do you know what I am?"

"Because you flourish about so with that light."

"What? Where? Where have I flourished about with a light? I always take
a lantern when I go out to the stable, but--"

The gendarme laughed and said: "I mean your brown eyes--that's where
the light is. Your eyes are like two balls of fire."

"Then get out of my way, lest you get burnt. You might get blown up with
all that powder in your cartridge-box."

"There's nothing in it," said the gendarme, embarrassed, but wishing to
make some kind of retort. "But you have scorched me already."

"I don't see where--you seem to be all right. But enough! Let me go."

"I'm not keeping you, you little crib-biter. You could lead a man a hard
life, who was fond of you."

"Nobody need be fond of me," said Amrei; and she rushed away as if she
had got loose from a chain.

She stood in the doorway where many spectators were crowded together. A
new dance was just beginning, and she swayed back and forth with the
music. The feeling that she had got the better of some one made her more
cheerful than ever, and she would have taken up arms against the whole
world, as well as against a single gendarme. But her tormentor soon
appeared again; he posted himself behind Amrei and said all kinds of
things to her. She made no answer and pretended not to hear him, every
now and then nodding to the people as they danced by, as if she had been
greeted by them. Only when the gendarme said:

"If I were allowed to marry, I'd take you."

She replied:

"Take me, indeed! But I shouldn't give myself!"

The gendarme was glad to have at least got an answer from her, and
continued:

"And if I were allowed to dance, I would have one with you right now."

"I cannot dance," replied Amrei.

Just then the music ceased. Amrei pushed against the people in front of
her, and made her way in to seek some retired corner. She heard some one
behind her say:

"Why, she can dance better than anybody in this part of the country!"




CHAPTER X

ONLY A SINGLE DANCE


Down from the musicians' platform Crappy Zachy handed a glass to Amrei.
She took a sip, and handed it back; and Crappy Zachy said:

"If you dance, Amrei, I'll play all my instruments so that the angels
will come down from the sky and join in."

"Yes, but unless an angel comes down from the sky and asks me, I shall
not get a partner," said Amrei, half in fun and half in sorrow. And then
she began to wonder why there had to be a gendarme at a dance; but she
did not hold to this thought long, but immediately went on to say to
herself: "After all, he is a man like anybody else, even though he has a
sword on; and before he became a gendarme, he was a lad like the rest.
It must be a plague for him that he can't dance. But what's that to me?
I, too, am obliged to be a mere spectator, and I don't get any money for
it."

For a short time things went on in a much more quiet and moderate manner
in the dancing-room. For the "English woman," as Agy, the wife of
Severin, the building contractor, was still called, had come to the
dance with her children. The rich wood-merchants set the champagne corks
to popping and offered a glass to the English woman; she drank the
health of the young couple and then made each one happy by a gracious
word. A constant and complacent smile was lighting up the face of
everybody. Agy honored many a young fellow who drank to her from the
garlanded glasses, by sipping from hers in return. The old women, who
sat near Barefoot, were loud in their praises of the English woman, and
stood up a long time before she came when they saw her approaching to
speak a few words to them. When Agy had gone away, the rejoicing,
singing, dancing, stamping, and shouting broke out again with renewed
vigor.

Farmer Rodel's foreman now came toward Amrei, and she felt a thrill of
expectation. But the foreman said:

"Here, Barefoot, take care of my pipe for me while I am dancing." And
after that several young girls from her village also came; from one she
received a jacket, from another a cap, or a neckerchief, or a door-key.
She let them hand it all over to her, and stood there with an
ever-increasing load as one dance followed another. All the time she
smiled quietly to herself, but nobody came to ask her to dance. Now a
waltz was being played, so smoothly that one could have swum to it. And
then a wild and furious galop; hurrah! now they are all hopping and
stamping and jumping and panting in supreme delight. And how their eyes
glitter! The old women who are sitting in the corner where Amrei is
standing, complain of the dust and heat; but still, they don't go home.
Then--suddenly Amrei starts; her eyes are fixed upon a handsome young
man who is walking proudly to and fro among the crowd. It is the rider
who had met her that morning, and whom she had snubbed in such a pert
way. All eyes are fastened upon him as he comes forward, his right hand
behind him, and his left holding a silver-mounted pipe. His silver
watch-chain bobs up and down, and how beautiful is his black velvet
jacket, and his loose black velvet trousers, and his red waistcoat! But
more beautiful still is his round head with its curly, brown hair. His
brow is white as snow; but from the eyes down his face is sunburnt, and
a light, full beard covers his chin and cheeks.

"That's a bonny fellow," said one of the old women.

"And what heavenly blue eyes he has!" added another; "they are at once
so roguish and so kind."

"Where can he be from? He's not from this neighborhood," said a third.

And a fourth observed:

"I'll wager he's another suitor for Amrei."

Barefoot started. What did this mean? What was that she said? But she
soon found out the meaning of it, for the first old lady resumed:

"Then I'm sorry for him; for the Butter Countess makes fools of all the
men."

And so the Butter Countess's name was also Amrei.

The young stranger had passed through the room several times, turning
his eyes from one side to the other. Then he suddenly stopped not far
from Barefoot and beckoned to her. A hot flush overspread her face; she
stood riveted to the spot and did not move a muscle. No, he certainly
beckoned to somebody behind you; he cannot mean you. The stranger
pressed forward and Amrei made way for him. He must be looking for some
one else.

"No, it's you I want," said the lad, taking Barefoot's hand. "Will you
dance?"

Amrei could not speak. But what need was there to speak? She threw
everything she had in her arms down into a corner--jackets,
neckerchiefs, caps, pipes, and door-keys--and stood there ready. The
lad threw a dollar up to the musicians; and when Crappy Zachy saw Amrei
on the arm of the stranger, he blew his trumpet until the very walls
trembled. And to the blessed souls above no music can sound more
beautiful than did this to Amrei. She danced she knew not how; she felt
as if she were being carried in the stranger's arms, as if she were
floating in the air, and there seemed to be no one else there. And,
indeed, they both danced so well, that everybody involuntarily stopped
to look at them.

"We are alone," said Amrei during the dance; and then she felt the warm
breath of her partner as he answered:

"Oh that we were alone--alone in the world! Why cannot one go on dancing
thus--on and on to the end of time."

"I feel," said Amrei, "just as if we were two doves flying through the
air. Juhu! away into the heavens!" And "Juhu!" cried the lad gleefully,
"Juhu!" And the sound shot up heavenward like a fiery rocket. "Juhu!"
cried Amrei, rejoicing with him. And on they danced with ever-increasing
joy. Finally Amrei said:

"Tell me--is the music going on? Are the musicians still playing? I
don't hear them any more."

"Of course they are still playing. Don't you hear them?"

"Yes, now I do," said Amrei. And now they stopped, for her partner
probably felt that she was becoming giddy with happiness.

The stranger led Amrei to the table, and gave her wine to drink, and did
not let go her hand. He lifted the Swedish ducat that hung from her
necklace, and said:

"This ducat is in a good place."

"And it came from a good hand," answered Amrei. "That necklace was given
to me when I was a little child."

"By a relative?"

"No, the lady was no relative."

"Dancing agrees with you apparently."

"Oh, indeed it does! You see, I'm obliged to jump around so much all the
year around when nobody is playing for me--and therefore I enjoy it
doubly now."

"You look as round as a ball," said the stranger in jest. "You must live
where the food is good."

Amrei replied quickly:

"It's not the food itself that does it, but the way one enjoys it."

The stranger nodded; and after a pause, he spoke again, half
questioningly:

"You are the daughter of Farmer--"

"No, I am a maid," replied Amrei, looking him full in the face. The
stranger's eyes almost fell; the lids quivered, but he held them open by
force. And this struggle and victory of the bodily eye seemed to be a
symbol of what was going on within him. He felt almost inclined to leave
the girl sitting there; but he resisted and conquered the impulse, and
said:

"Come, let us have another dance."

He held her hand fast, and the pleasure and excitement began again; but
this time it was more quiet and moderate. Both of them seemed to feel
that the sensation of being lifted to the sky was over and past; and
this thought was evidently in Amrei's mind when she said:

"Well, we have been very happy together once, even if we don't see each
other again in all our lives, and even though neither of us knows the
other's name."

The youth nodded and said:

"You are right."

Amrei held the end of her braid between her lips in embarrassment, and
after a pause spoke again:

"The enjoyment one has once had cannot be taken from one; and whoever
you are, you need never repent of having given a poor girl a pleasure
she will remember all her life."

"I don't repent of it," replied her partner. "But I know that you repent
of having answered me so sharply this morning."

"Oh, yes, you are right there!" cried Amrei; and then the stranger said:

"Would you venture to go out into the field with me?"

"Yes."

"And do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"But what will your people say?"

"I have nobody but myself to give account of my actions to; I am an
orphan."

Hand in hand the two went out of the dancing-room. Barefoot heard
several people whispering and tittering behind her, but she kept her
eyes fixed on the ground. She wondered if she had not ventured too far
after all.

In the fields, where the first ears of wheat were beginning to sprout
and still lay half concealed in their green sheaths, the two stopped and
stood looking at each other in silence. For a long time neither said a
word. But finally it was the man who broke the silence, by saying, half
to himself:

"I wonder how it is that one, on first sight, can be so--so--I don't
know--so confidential with a person? How is it one can read what is
written in another's face?" "Now we have set a poor soul free," said
Amrei; "for you know, when two people think the same thought at the same
time, they are said to set a soul free. And I was thinking the very
words you just spoke."

"Indeed? And do you know why?"

"Yes."

"Will you tell me?"

"Why not? Look you; I have been a goose-keeper--"

At these words the stranger started again; but he pretended that
something had fallen into his eye, and began to rub that organ
vigorously, while Barefoot went on, undismayed:

"Look you; when one sits or lies alone out in the fields all day, one
thinks of hundreds of things, and some of them are strange thoughts
indeed. Just try it yourself, and you will certainly find it so. Every
fruit-tree, if you look at it as a whole, has the appearance of the
fruit it bears. Take the apple-tree; does it not look, spread out broad,
and, as it were, in round pieces, like the apple itself? And the same is
true of the pear-tree and the cherry-tree, if only you look at them in
the right way. Look what a long trunk the cherry-tree has--like the stem
of a cherry. And so I think--"

"Well, what do you think?"

"You'll laugh at me; but just as the fruit-trees look like the fruits
they bear, so is it also with people; one can tell what they are at once
by looking at them. But the trees, to be sure, always have honest faces,
while people can dissemble theirs. But I am talking nonsense, am I not?"

"No, you have not kept geese for nothing," said the lad; and there was a
strange mixture of feelings in the tone of his voice. "I like to talk
with you. I should give you a kiss, if I were not afraid of doing what
is wrong."

Barefoot trembled all over. She stooped to break off a flower, but did
not break it. There was a long pause, and then the lad went on: "We
shall most likely never meet again, and so it is best as it is."

Hand in hand the two went back to the dancing-room. There they danced
once more together without saying a word to each other, and when the
dance was over, the young man again led her to the table, and said:

"Now I shall say good-by. But first you must get your breath, and then
drink once more."

He handed her the glass, and when she set it down again, he said:

"You must drain it, for my sake, to the very bottom."

Amrei drank and drank; and when the glass was empty in her hand, she
looked around--the stranger was gone! She went down and stood in front
of the house; and there she saw him again, not far away, riding off on
his white horse; but he did not look back.

The mist hung over the valley like a veil of clouds, and the sun had
already set. Barefoot said to herself, almost aloud:

"I wish tomorrow would never come, but that it would always be
today--always today!" And then she stood still, lost in dreams.

The night came on quickly. The moon, looking like a thin sickle, was
resting on the summits of the dark mountains. One little Bernese wagon
after another drove away. Barefoot went to find her master's chaise, to
which the horses were now being hitched. Then Rose came and told her
brother that she had promised some young people of her village to go
home in company with them. And it was understood as a matter of course
that the farmer could not drive home alone with the maid. And so the
little Bernese wagon went rattling off toward home with a single
occupant. Rose must have seen Barefoot, but she acted as if she were not
there. And so Barefoot once more wandered forth along the road on which
the stranger had departed. Whither could he have gone? How many hundred
villages and hamlets there were along that road, and to which one was
he bound? Barefoot found the place again where he had first accosted her
in the morning; she repeated aloud to herself his salutation, and the
answer she had given him. And once more she sat down behind the hazel
hedge, where in the morning she had slept and dreamt. A yellowhammer sat
on a slender spray, and its six notes sounded just as if it were saying:
"And why art thou still here? And why art thou still here?"

Barefoot had lived through a whole life's history in this one day. Could
it be but a single day? She went back again to the dance, but did not go
up to the room itself. And then she started out homeward alone. She had
gone almost halfway to Haldenbrunn, when she suddenly turned back; she
seemed unable to tear herself away from the place where she had been so
happy. And she said to herself that it was not right for her to go home
alone anyway; she should go in company with the young men and girls from
her village. When she arrived in front of the tavern at Endringen again,
she found several people from her village already assembled there.

"Ah, are you here, too, Barefoot?" was the only greeting she received.

And now there was great confusion; for many who had been the first to
urge going home, were still upstairs dancing. And now some strange lads
came and begged and besought them to stay for just one more dance; and
they got their way. Barefoot, too, went upstairs, but only to look on.
At last the cry was: "Whoever dances now shall be left behind;" and
after a great deal of difficulty and much rushing to and fro, the
Haldenbrunn contingent was finally assembled in front of the house. Some
of the musicians escorted them through the village, and many a sleepy
father came to the window to see what was going on, while now and then a
woman, who had once been one of the merry-makers herself, but who had
married and so culminated her days of frivolity, would appear at a
window and cry: "A pleasant journey home!"

The night was dark, and large pine fagots had been provided for torches;
and the lads who carried them danced about and shouted with joy.
Scarcely had the musicians gone back, and scarcely had the party left
Endringen well behind, when the cry was: "Put out the torches! They only
dazzle us!" And two soldiers in particular, who were then off duty and
had joined the party, made fun of the torches, in proud consciousness of
their sabres. Accordingly the torches were extinguished in a ditch. And
now they began to miss this or that boy, and this or that girl, and when
their comrades called out to them, they would answer from a distance.

Barefoot walked behind the rest, a good distance from those of her own
village. They let her alone, and that was the greatest kindness they
could have done her; she was with the people of her own village, and yet
she was alone. She often looked around at the fields and the woods; how
wonderful it all looked in the night!--so strange and yet so familiar!
The whole world seemed as strange to her as she had become to herself.
And as she went along, step by step, as if she were being pulled or
pushed, without realizing that she was moving, so did her thoughts move,
involuntarily, in her mind; they seemed to be whirling on, and she could
not grasp or control them--she did not know what it meant. Her cheeks
glowed as if every star in the heavens were a heat-radiating sun, and
her very heart burned within her.

And now, just as if she had begun it, as if she herself had struck up
the tune, her companions ahead began to sing the song that had risen to
her lips that morning:

  "There were two lovers in Allgau,
  Who loved each other so dear;

  And the young lad went away to war;
  When comest thou home again?

  Ah, that I cannot, love, tell thee,
  What year, or what day, or what hour!"

And then the "Good Night" song was sung; and Amrei,
in the distance, joined in:

  "A fair 'good night' to thee, love, farewell!
    When all are sleeping
    Then watch I'm keeping,
      So wearily.

  A fair "good night" to thee, love, farewell!
    Now I must leave thee,
    And joy be with thee,
      Till I come back.

  And when I come back, then I'll come to thee,
    And then I'll kiss thee,
    That tastes so sweetly,--
      Love, thou art mine!

  Love, thou art mine, and I am thine,
    And that doth content me,
    And shall not repent thee,
      Love, fare thee well!"

At last they came to the village, where one group after another detached
itself. Barefoot paused under the tree by her father's house, and stood
there for a long time in dreamy meditation. She would have liked to go
in and tell Black Marianne everything, but gave up the idea. Why should
she disturb the old woman's rest at night? What good would it do? She
went quietly home, where everybody was asleep. When she finally entered
the house, everything seemed so much more strange to her than it had
outside--so odd, so out of keeping, so out of place. "Why do you come
home? What do you want here?" There seemed to be a strange questioning
in every sound; when the dog barked, when the stairs creaked, when the
cows lowed in the stable--they all seemed to be questioning her: "Who's
that coming home? Who's that?" And when at length she found herself in
her room, she sat down quietly and stared at the light. Suddenly she got
up, seized the lamp, held it up to the glass, and looked at her face;
she felt inclined to ask herself: "Who's that?"--"And thus," she
thought, "he saw me--this is how I looked. He must have been pleased
with something about you, or else why did he look at you so?"

There arose in her a quiet feeling of contentment, which was heightened
by the thought:

"Well, for once you have been looked upon as a person; until now you
have been nothing but a servant, a convenience for others. Good night,
Amrei--this has been a day indeed! But even this day must come to an end
at last."




CHAPTER XI

WHAT THE OLD SONG SAYS


[The memory of the handsome stranger, and of the dance, and of all the
new and wonderful emotions that had filled her heart on that eventful
day, to Amrei was a sacred one indeed; for weeks she thought of it by
day and dreamed of it by night. The jealous, sneering remarks of Rose,
and the half-serious, half-jesting utterances of other people, who had
been present at the wedding, meant nothing to her; she went about her
work all the more diligently and ignored it all. Black Marianne could
offer her no encouragement in her hope that the stranger would some day
appear again and claim her; she had waited all her life for her John,
and would continue to wait until she died.]

Spring had come again. Amrei was standing beside the flowers in her
window when a bee came flying up and began sucking at an open blossom.

"Yes, so it is," thought Barefoot; "a girl is like a plant; she grows up
in one place, and cannot go out into the world and seek--she must wait
until something comes flying to her."

  "Were I a little bird,
  And had a pair of wings,
      I'd fly to thee;
  But since I can't do that,
      Here must I be.

  Though I am far from thee,
  In dreams I am with thee,
      Thou art mine own;
  But when I wake again,
      I am alone.

  No hour at night doth pass,
  But that my heart doth wake,
      And think of thee,--"

Thus sang Amrei. It was wonderful how all songs seemed now to apply to
her own life. And how many thousands of people have already sung those
songs from the depths of their souls, and how many thousands more are
yet to sing them!

Ye who yearn and who at last embrace a heart, ye embrace along with it
the love of all those who have ever been, or who ever shall be.




CHAPTER XII

HE IS COME


One Sunday afternoon Barefoot, according to her custom, was leaning
against the door-post of the house and gazing dreamily out before her,
when Coaly Mathew's grandson came running up the street, beckoning to
her from afar and crying:

"He is come, Barefoot! He is come!"

Barefoot felt her knees tremble, and she cried in a broken voice:

"Where is he? Where?"

"At my grandfather's, in Mossbrook Wood!"

"Where? Who? Who sent you?"

"Your Damie--he's down yonder in the woods."

Barefoot was obliged to sit down on the stone bench in front of the
house; but only for a minute. Then she pulled herself together and stood
up stiffly with the words:

"My brother? My Damie?"

"Yes, Barefoot's Damie," said the boy, bluntly; "and he promised that
you would give me a kreutzer if I would run and tell you. So now give me
a kreutzer."

"My Damie will give you three."

"Oh, no!" said the boy, "he's been whimpering to my grandfather because
he hadn't a kreutzer left."

"I haven't one now either," said Barefoot, "but I'll promise you one."

She went quickly into the house and begged the second maid to milk the
cows for her that evening, in case she should not get back, for she had
an errand to do immediately. Then, with a heart now full of anger at
Damie, now full of sorrow for him and his awkwardness, again full of
vexation on account of his coming back, and then again full of
self-reproach that she should be going to meet her only brother in such
a way, Barefoot wended her way out into the fields and down the valley
to Mossbrook Wood.

There was no mistaking the way to Coaly Mathew's, even if one were to
wander off from the foot-path. The smell of burning charcoal led one to
him infallibly.

How the birds are rejoicing in the trees! And beneath them a sad maiden
is passing, thinking how unhappy it must make her brother to see all
these things again, and how badly things must have gone with him, if he
had no other resource but to come home and live upon her earnings.

"Other sisters are helped by their brothers," she thought to herself,
"and I--but I shall show you this time, Damie, that you must stay where
I put you, and that you dare not stir!"

Such were Barefoot's thoughts as she hurried along; and at last she
arrived at Coaly Mathew's. But there she saw only Coaly Mathew himself,
who was sitting by the kiln in front of his log cabin, and holding his
wooden pipe with both hands as he smoked it; for a charcoal-burner is
like a charcoal kiln, in that he is always smoking.

"Has anybody been playing a trick on me?" Barefoot asked herself. "Oh,
that would be shameful! What have I done to people that they should
make a fool of me? But I shall soon find out who did it--and he shall
pay for it."

With clenched fists and a flaming face she stood before Coaly Mathew,
who hardly raised his eyes to her--much less did he speak. As long as
the sun was shining he was almost always mute, and only at night, when
nobody could look into his eyes, did he like to talk, and then he spoke
freely.

Barefoot gazed for a minute at the charcoal-burner's black face, and
then asked impatiently:

"Where is my Damie?"

The old man shook his head. Then Barefoot asked again with a stamp of
her foot:

"Is my Damie with you?"

The old man unfolded his hands and spread them right and left, implying
thereby that he was not there.

"Who was it that sent to me?" asked Barefoot, still more impatiently.
"Can't you speak?"

The charcoal-burner pointed with his right thumb toward the side where a
foot-path wound around the mountain.

"For Heaven's sake, do say something!" cried Barefoot, fairly weeping
with indignation; "only a single word! Is my Damie here, or where is
he?"

At last the old man said:

"He's there--gone to meet you along the path." And then, as if he had
said too much, he pressed his lips together and walked off around the
kiln.

Barefoot now stood there, laughing scornfully and, at the same time,
sadly over her brother's simplicity.

"He sends to me and doesn't stay in the place where I can find him; now
if I go up that way, why should he expect me to come by the foot-path?
That has doubtless occurred to him now, and he'll be going some other
way--so that I shall never find him, and we shall be wandering about
each other as in a fog."

Barefoot sat down quietly on the stump of a tree. There was a fire
within her as within the kiln, only the flames could not leap
forth--the fire could merely smolder within. The birds were singing, the
forest rustling--but what is all that when there is no clear, responsive
note in the heart? Barefoot now remembered, as in a dream, how she had
once cherished thoughts of love. What right had she to let such thoughts
rise within her? Had she not misery enough in herself and in her
brother? And this thought of love seemed to her now like the
remembrance, in winter, of a bright summer's day. One merely remembers
how sunny and warm it was--but that is all. Now she had to learn what it
meant to "wait,"--to "wait" high up on a crag, where there is hardly a
palm's breadth of room. And he who knows what it means, feels all his
old misery--and more.

She went into the charcoal-burner's log cabin, and there lay a cloth
sack, hardly half full, and on the sack was her father's name.

"Oh, how you have been dragged about!" she said, almost aloud. But she
soon got over her excitement in her curiosity to see what Damie had
brought back. "He must at least still have the shirts that I made for
him out of Black Marianne's linen. And perhaps there is also a present
from our uncle in America in it. But if he had anything good, would he
have gone first to Coaly Mathew in the forest? Would he not have shown
himself in the village at once?"

Barefoot had plenty of time to indulge in these reflections; for the
sack had been tied with a cord, which had been knotted in a most
complicated way, and it required all her patience and skill to
disentangle it. She emptied out everything that was in the sack and said
with angry eyes:

"Oh, you good-for-nothing! There's not a decent shirt left! Now you may
have your choice whether you'll be called 'Jack in Tatters' or 'Tattered
Jack.'"

This was not a happy frame of mind in which to greet her brother for the
first time. And Damie seemed to realize this; for he stood at the
entrance of the log cabin and looked on, until Barefoot had put
everything back into the sack. Then he stepped up to her and said:

"God greet you, Amrei! I bring you nothing but dirty clothes, but you
are neat, and will make me--"

"Oh, dear Damie, how you look!" cried Barefoot, and she threw herself on
his neck. But she quickly tore herself away from him, exclaiming:

"For Heaven's sake! You smell of whisky! Have you got so far already?"

"No, Coaly Mathew only gave me a little juniper spirit, for I could not
stand up any longer. Things have gone badly with me, but I have not
taken to drink--you may believe that, though, to be sure, I can't prove
it."

"I believe you, for you surely would not wish to deceive the only one
you have on earth! But oh, how wild and miserable you look! You have a
beard as heavy as a knife-grinder's. I won't allow that--you must shave
it off. But you're in good health? There's nothing the matter with you?"

"I am in good health, and intend to be a soldier."

"What you are, and what you are to be, we'll think about in good time.
But now tell me how things have gone with you."

Damie kicked his foot against a half-burnt log of wood--one of the
spoilt logs, as they were called--and said:

"Look you--I am just like that, not completely turned to coal, and yet
no longer fresh wood."

Barefoot exhorted him to say what he had to say without complaints. And
then Damie went off into a long, long story, setting forth how he had
not been able to bear the life at his uncle's, and how hard-hearted and
selfish that uncle was, and especially how his wife had grudged him
every bit he ate in the house, and how he had got work here and there,
but how in every place he had only experienced a little more of man's
hard-heartedness. "In America," he said, "one can see another person
perishing in misery, and never so much as look around at him."

Barefoot could hardly help laughing when there came again and again, as
the burden of his story,--"And then they turned me out into the street."
She could not help interrupting him with:

"Yes, that's just how you are, and how you used to be, even as a child.
When you once stumbled, you let yourself fall like a log of wood; one
must convert the stumble into a hop, as the old proverb says. Cheer up.
Do you know what one must do, when people try to hurt one?"

"One must keep out of their way."

"No, one must hurt them, if one can--and one hurts them most by standing
up and achieving something. But you always stand there and say to the
world: 'Do what you like to me, good or bad; kiss me or beat me, just as
you will.' That's easy enough; you let people do anything to you, and
then pity yourself. I should like it right well myself, if some one
would place me here and there, and do everything for me. But you must
look out for yourself now. You've let yourself be pushed about quite
enough in the world; now you must play the master for awhile."

Reproof and teaching often seem like hardness and injustice in the eyes
of the unhappy; and Damie took his sister's words as such. It was
dreadful that she did not see that he was the most unhappy creature on
earth. She strongly urged him not to believe that, and said that if he
did not believe it, it would not be so. But it is the most difficult of
all undertakings to inspire a man with confidence in himself; most
people acquire it only after they have succeeded.

Damie declared that he would not tell his heartless sister a word more;
and it was only after some time that she got from him a detailed account
of his travels and fortunes, and of how he had at last come back to the
old world as a stoker on a steamboat. While she reproved him for his
self-tormenting touchiness, she became conscious that she herself was
not entirely free from that fault. For, as a result of her almost
exclusive association with Black Marianne, she had fallen into the habit
of thinking and talking so much about herself, that she had acquired a
desponding way. And now that she was called upon to cheer her brother
up, she unconsciously exerted a similar influence upon herself. For
herein lies the mysterious power of cooperation among men, that when we
help others we are also helping ourselves.

"We have four sound hands," she said in conclusion, "and we'll see if we
cannot fight our way through the world together. And to fight your way
through is a thousand times better than to beg your way through. And
now, Damie, come with me--come home."

Damie did not want to show himself in the village at all; he dreaded the
jeering that would be vented upon him from all sides, and preferred to
remain concealed for the present. But Barefoot said:

"You go with me now--on this bright Sunday; and you must walk right
through the village, and let the people mock at you, let them have their
say, let them point and laugh. Then you'll be through with it, then it
will be over, and you will have swallowed their bitter draught all at
once, and not drop by drop."

Not without long and obstinate resistance, not until Coaly Mathew had
interfered and sided with Barefoot, was Damie induced to comply. And
there was, indeed, a perfect hailstorm of jeering, sometimes coarse,
sometimes satirical, directed at Barefoot's Damie, whom people accused
of having taken merely a pleasure-trip to America at the expense of the
parish.

Black Marianne alone received him kindly; her first question was:

"Have you heard nothing of my John?" But he could give her no
information.

In a double sense Damie was doomed to be scratched that day; for that
very evening Barefoot had the barber come and shave off his wild beard,
and give him the smooth face that was the fashion of the country.

The next morning Damie was summoned to the Courthouse; and inasmuch as
he trembled at the summons, he knew not why, Barefoot promised to
accompany him. And that was good, though it was not of much use; for the
Council declared to Damie that he was to be sent away from the place,
that he had no right to remain there, perhaps to become a burden on the
community once more.

All the members were astonished when Barefoot answered "Yes, you can
send him away--but do you know when? When you can go out to the
churchyard, where our father and mother lie buried, and say to them:
'Up, go away with your child!' Then you can send him away. No one can be
sent away from the place where his parents are buried; for he is more
than at home there. And if it is written a thousand times in your books
there, and a thousand times again,"--and here she pointed to the bound
government registers,--"and wherever else it may be written, it cannot
be done, and you cannot do it."

One of the councilors whispered to the schoolmaster:

"Barefoot has learned to talk in that way from nobody else but Black
Marianne."

And the sexton leaned over to the magistrate and said:

"Why do you allow the Cinderella to make such an outcry? Ring for the
gendarme and have him shut her up in the madhouse."

But the magistrate only smiled, and explained that the community had rid
itself of all burdens that could ever accrue to it through Damie by
paying the greater part of his passage money.

"But where is his home now?" asked Barefoot.

"Wherever they will receive him, but not here--at present nowhere."

"Yes, I have no home," said Damie, who almost enjoyed being made more
and more unhappy; for now nobody could deny that he was the most
unfortunate person in the world.

Barefoot continued to fight, but she soon saw that nothing could be
done; the law was against her. She now declared that she would work her
fingers to the bone rather than take anything more from the parish,
either for herself or for her brother; and she promised to pay back all
that had been received.

"Shall I put that down on the minutes?" asked the clerk of those who sat
around. And Barefoot replied:

"Yes, put it down; for with you nothing counts except what's written."

Barefoot then put her signature to the entry. When this was done, it was
announced that Damie, as a stranger, had permission to remain in the
village for three days, but that if within that time he had not found
some means of subsistence, he would be sent away, and in case of
necessity, would be removed by force across the frontier.

Without another word Barefoot left the Court-house with Damie, who
actually shed tears because she had compelled him to return to the
village to no purpose. It would have been better, he declared, if he had
remained out in the woods and spared himself the jeering, and the
humiliation of hearing himself banished as a stranger from his native
place. Barefoot wanted to reply that it was better to know the worst,
however bitter it might be; but she restrained herself, realizing that
she had need of all her strength to keep up her own courage. She felt as
if she had been banished with her brother, and understood that she had
to fight with a world that had law and might to fall back upon, while
she herself was empty-handed and helpless.

But she bore up more bravely than ever; she did not allow Damie's
weaknesses and adversities to weigh upon her. For that is the way with
people; if any one has a pain of his own which entirely occupies him, he
will bear a second pain--be it ever so severe--more easily than if he
had this second pain alone to bear. And thus while Barefoot had a
feeling of indescribable sorrow against which she could do nothing, she
was able to bear the definite trial against which she could strive, the
more willingly and freely. She allowed herself not a minute more for
dreaming, and went to and fro with stiff arms and clinched fists, as if
to say: "Where is there work to do? Be it ever so hard, I will gladly
undertake it, if only I can get myself and my brother out of this state
of forsaken dependency."

She now cherished the idea of going with Damie to Alsace, and working in
a factory there. It seemed terrible to her that she should have to do
this, but she would force herself to it; as soon as the summer was over,
she would go. And then, "Farewell home," she said, "for we are strangers
even here where we were born."

The one protector the two orphans had had on the Village Council was now
powerless to do anything for them; old Farmer Rodel was taken seriously
ill, and in the night following the stormy meeting he died. Barefoot and
Black Marianne were the two people who wept the most at his burial in
the churchyard. On the way home Black Marianne gave as a special reason
for this fact that old Farmer Rodel had been the last survivor of those
with whom she had danced in her youth. "And now," she said, "my last
partner is dead."

But she soon spoke a very different elegy concerning him; for it
appeared that Farmer Rodel, who had for years been raising Barefoot's
hopes concerning his will, made no mention at all of her in that
document--far less did he leave her anything.

When Black Marianne went on with an endless tirade of scolding and
complaining, Barefoot said:

"It's all coming at once. The sky is cloudy now, and the hail is beating
down upon me from all sides; but the sun will soon be shining again."

The relatives of Farmer Rodel gave Barefoot a few garments that had
belonged to the old man; she would have liked to refuse them, but
realized that it would not do to show a spirit of obstinacy just now. At
first Damie also refused to accept the clothes, but he was finally
obliged to give in; he seemed fated to pass his life in the clothes of
various dead people.

Coaly Mathew took Damie to work with him at the kiln in the forest,
where talebearers kept coming to Damie to tell him that he had only to
begin a lawsuit; they declared that he could not be driven away, for he
had not yet been received at any other place, and that this was always a
tacit condition when any one gave up his right of settlement. These
people seemed to derive a certain satisfaction from the reflection that
the poor orphans had neither time nor money to begin a legal process.

Damie seemed to like the solitude of the forest; it suited him exactly,
the fact that one was not obliged to dress and undress there. And every
Sunday afternoon Barefoot experienced great difficulty in getting him to
clean himself up a little; then she would sit with him and Coaly Mathew.

Little was said, and Barefoot could not prevent her thoughts from
wandering about the world in search of him who had once made her so
happy for a whole day, and had lifted her above the earth. Did he know
nothing more about her? Did he think of her no more? Could people forget
other people with whom they had once been so happy?

It was on a Sunday morning toward the end of May, and everybody was at
church. The day before it had rained, and now a strong, refreshing
breeze was blowing over the mountains and valleys, and the sun was
shining brightly. Barefoot had also intended to go to church, but while
the bells were ringing she had sat as if spell-bound beneath her window,
until it was too late to go. That was a strange thing for her, and it
had never happened before. But now that it was too late, she determined
to stay at home by herself and read her hymn-book. She rummaged through
her drawers, and was surprised to find all sorts of things that belonged
to her. She was sitting on the floor, reading a hymn and humming the
tune of it to herself, when something stirred at the window. She glanced
up; a white dove was sitting on the ledge and looking at her. When the
eyes of the dove and of the girl met, the bird flew away. Barefoot
watched it soar out over the fields and alight again.

This incident, which was a very natural one, filled her heart with
gladness; and she kept nodding to the mountains in the distance, and to
the fields and woods. The rest of that day she was unusually cheerful.
She could not explain to herself why, but it seemed to her as if a
joyous spirit were singing within her, and she knew not whence it came.
And as often as she shook her head, while she leaned against the
door-post, wondering at the strange excitement she felt, the feeling did
not pass away.

"It must be, it must be that some one has been thinking kindly of me,"
she said; "and why should it not be possible that the dove was a silent
messenger who came to tell me so?--Animals, after all, live in the
world, where the thoughts of men are flying about, and who knows if they
do not quietly carry those thoughts away?"

The people who passed by Barefoot could have no idea of the strange life
that was moving within her.




CHAPTER XIII

OUT OF A MOTHER'S HEART


While Barefoot was dreaming and working and worrying in village, field,
and wood, sometimes feeling a strange thrill of joy, at other times
thinking herself completely deserted, two parents were sending their
child forth into the world, in the hope, to be sure, that he would
return to them the richer. Yonder in Allgau, in the large farm-house
known, by the sign over the door, as the "Wild Clearing," sat Farmer
Landfried and his wife, with their youngest son. The farmer was saying:

"Listen, John; it's more than a year since you came back, and I don't
know what's gotten into you. You came home that day like a whipped dog,
and said that you would rather choose a wife here in the
neighborhood--but I don't see any signs of your doing it. If you will
follow my advice once more, then I won't say another word to persuade
you."

"Yes, I will," said the young man, without looking up. "Well then, make
one more trial--one trial is no better than no trial. And I tell you,
you will make me and your mother happy if you choose a wife from our
region. I may say it to your face, wife; there's only one good breed of
women in the world, and they come from our part of the country. Now, you
are a sensible lad, John, and you will be sure to pick out a good one,
and then you'll thank us on your death-bed for sending you to our home
to find a wife. If I could get away, I would go with you--together we
would find the right one surely--but I can't go. I've spoken to our
George, however, and he says he'll go with you if you ask him. Ride
over, and speak to him then."

"If I may say what I think," answered the young man, "when I go again,
I'd rather go alone. You see, it's my way; in such a matter a second
pair of eyes is superfluous--I should not like to consult any one else.
If it were possible, I should even like to make myself invisible while I
am looking around; but if two of us went together, we might as well have
it proclaimed abroad, so that they would all dress themselves up to
receive us."

"As you will," said the father; "you always were a strange fellow. Do
you know what? Suppose you start at once; we want a mate for our white
horse, so do you go out and look for one--but not in the market, of
course. And when you are going about from house to house, you can see
things for yourself; and on your way home you can buy a Bernese
chaise-wagon. Dominic, in Endringen, they say, has three daughters as
straight as organ-pipes; choose one of them--we should like to have a
daughter from that house."

"Yes," the mother observed, "Ameile is sure to have nice daughters."

"And it would be well," continued the father, "if you went to
Siebenhofen and took a look at Amrei, the Butter Count's daughter. She
has a farm of her own that one could easily sell; the farmers of
Siebenhofen have got their eyes on it, for they want to have more land.
But it's a question of cold cash, and none of them can raise it. But
I'll say nothing more, for you have eyes of your own. Come, set out at
once, and I'll fill the money-belt for you--two hundred crowns will be
enough, but if you should have to have more, Dominic will lend you some.
Only make yourself known; I could never understand why you did not tell
people who you were that time at the wedding. Something must have
happened then--but I won't ask any questions."

"Yes, because he won't answer them," said the mother, smiling.

The farmer at once set about filling the money-belt; he broke open two
large paper rouleaux, and it was manifest that he enjoyed counting out
the big coins from one hand into the other. He made twenty piles of ten
dollars each, and counted them over two or three times to be sure that
he had made no mistake.

"Well, I am ready," said the young man, standing up as he spoke.

He is the strange dancer whose acquaintance we made at the wedding in
Endringen. He went out to the stable, and presently returned with the
white horse already saddled. And as he was fastening his valise to the
bolster, a fine, large wolf-hound began jumping up at him and licking
his hands.

"Yes, yes, I'll take you with me," said the lad to the dog; and for the
first time his face looked cheerful, as he called out to his father:

"Father, can I take Lux with me?"

"Yes, if you like," sounded the answer from within, amid the jingling of
coins. The dog seemed to understand the question and the answer, for he
ran around the yard in circles, barking joyously. The young man went
into the house, and, as he was buckling on the money-belt, he said "You
are right, father; I feel better already, now that I am getting myself
out of this aimless way of living. And I don't know--people ought not
to be superstitious--but somehow I was glad when the horse turned around
and neighed to me when I went out into the stable just now--and that the
dog wants to go too. After all, they're good signs, and if we could ask
animals, who knows if they could not give us good advice?"

The mother smiled, but the father said:

"Don't forget to look up Crappy Zachy, and don't go ahead and bind
yourself until you have consulted him. He knows the affairs of all the
people for ten miles around, and is a living information bureau. And
now, God be with you! Take your time--you may stay away as long as ten
days."

Father and son shook hands, and the mother said:

"I'll escort you part of the way."

The young man, leading his horse by the bridle, then walked quietly
beside his mother until they were out in front of the yard, and it was
not until they reached the turn in the road that the mother said,
hesitatingly:

"I should like to give you some good advice."

"Yes, yes, let me have it--I'll listen to it gladly."

The mother then took her son's hand, and began:

"You must stand still--I can't talk while I am walking. Look; that she
should please you is, of course, the first thing--there's no happiness
without love. Well, I am an old woman, and so I may say what I think to
you, may I not?"

"Yes, surely."

"Well, if it doesn't make you happy, if it doesn't make you feel as if
it were a boon from heaven to kiss her, then it's not the right kind of
love. But--why don't you stand still--but that kind of love is not
enough; there may be something else concealed beneath it, believe me."
Here the old woman blushed crimson and hesitated. "Look you," she went
on, "where there is not the right feeling of respect, when a man does
not feel rejoiced that a woman takes a thing in hand in just one way,
and not in another, and does it just in this way, and not in that--it's
a bad sign. And above all things, notice how she treats her servants."

"I'll take what you have to say, and change it into small coin for you;
for talking is hard for you. What you have just said, I understand; she
must not be too proud, and not too familiar."

"That, certainly. But I can tell by looking at a girl's mouth, if that
mouth has used bad words and scolded and stormed, and is fond of doing
it. Yes, if you could see her weeping with vexation, or come upon her
unawares, when she is angry, that would be the best way of knowing what
she is. For then the inward self that we conceal springs out, and often
that self is armed with claws, like a devil. Oh, child, I have had much
experience, and have seen many things. I can tell by the way a woman
puts out a candle what she is, and what kind of a temper she has; she
who puts it out hurriedly as she goes by, regardless of whether it blows
sparks or sputters or not, she is one who prides herself upon her
bustling industry, and who does things only by halves, and has no peace
of mind."

"But, mother, you're making it too hard for me; after all, it's a
lottery, and always will be one."

"Yes, yes, you need not remember all I say--I mean it only in a general
way. If it should come before you, you'll know what I meant. And then
you must notice if she can talk and work at the same time, if she has
something in her hand while she is talking to you, and if she stops
every time she says a word and only pretends to be working. I tell you
that industry is everything in a woman. My mother always used to say: 'A
girl should never go about empty-handed, and should be ready to climb
over three fences to pick up a feather.' And yet she must be calm and
steady in her work, and not rush and rampage about as if she were going
to pull down a piece of the world. And when she speaks and answers you,
notice whether she is either too bashful or too bold. You may not
believe it, but girls are quite different when they see a man's hat
from what they are among themselves. And those who look as if they were
all the time saying, "Don't eat me!" are the worst--but, no--those who
have such sharp tongues, and think that when anybody is in the room
their tongues should never rest, those are worse still."

The lad laughed and said:

"Mother, you ought to go about the world preaching, and give lectures
for girls only."

"Yes, I could do that," replied the mother, also laughing. "But I have
brought out the last part first; you must, of course, notice how she
behaves to her parents and to her brothers and sisters. You are a good
son yourself--I need not tell you anything about that. You know the
Fourth Commandment."

"Yes, mother, you may rest easy there--I look out for a special sign in
regard to that; where they make a big fuss about love for parents, it
means nothing. For filial love is best shown by deeds, and those who
chatter very much about it, when the time comes for deeds, are tired and
weary."

"Why, how wise you are!" cried the mother; and she laid her hand on her
bosom and looked up at her son. "May I tell you something more?"

[Mother and son continue to discuss the qualifications of good wives for
some time, until the son begins to show signs of impatience to be off.]

"Yes, yes," said the mother, "I talk too much, and you need not remember
it all. It's only to remind you, if it should come before you. The gist
of what I say is this: the chief thing is not what a woman has or
inherits, but what she uses. And now, you know that I have always let
you go your own way quietly; so then, open your heart to me, and tell me
what it was that made you come back from the wedding at Endringen like a
man bewitched, and why it is that you have never since then been the
same lad that you were before. Tell me, and perhaps I can help you."

"Oh, mother, you cannot do that--but I will tell you. I saw some one
there who would have been the right one, but she was the wrong one."

"For heaven's sake! You did not fall in love with a married woman?"

"No, but still she was the wrong one. Why should I make many words about
it? She was a servant-girl."

The son drew a deep breath, and for some time both he and his mother
were silent. At last the mother laid her hand on his shoulder, and said:

"Oh, you are good! And I thank God that He has made you so. You did well
to put that out of your mind. Your father would never have consented to
it, and you know what a father's blessing means."

"No, mother, I will not make myself out better than I am. I myself was
annoyed that she was only a servant; I knew it would not do, and
therefore I went away. But it is even harder than I expected to get her
out of my mind--but now it's over, it must be over. I have promised
myself not to make any inquiries about her, not to ask anybody where she
is, or who she is, and, God willing, I shall bring you home a worthy
farmer's daughter."

"Surely you acted fairly by the girl, and did not put any foolish
notions into her head?"

"Mother, there's my hand--I have nothing to reproach myself for."

"I believe you," said the mother, and she pressed his hand repeatedly.
"And now, good luck, and my blessing go with you!"

The son mounted his horse, and his mother looked after him. But suddenly
she called out again:

"Stop--I must tell you something else. I have forgotten the most
important of all."

The son turned his horse around, and when he got back to his mother, he
said, smiling:

"But mother--this is the last, eh?"

"Yes, and the best test of all. Ask the girl about the poor people in
her town, and then listen to what the poor people have to say about her.
A farmer's daughter who has not taken some poor person by the hand to
help her, cannot be a worthy girl--remember that. And now, God keep you,
and ride forth bravely."

As he rode off the mother spoke a prayer to speed him on his way, and
then returned to the farm.

"I ought to have told him to inquire about Josenhans's children, and to
find out what has become of them," said the mother to herself. She felt
strangely moved. And who knows the secret ways through which the soul
wanders, or what currents flow above our wonted course, or deep beneath
it? What made the mother think of these children, who seemed to have
faded from her memory long ago? Was her present pious mood like a
remembrance of long-forgotten emotions? And did it awaken the
circumstances that had accompanied those emotions? Who can understand
the impalpable and invisible elements that wander and float back and
forth from man to man, from memory to memory?

When the mother got back to the farm and found the father, the latter
said:

"No doubt you have given him many directions how to fish out the best
one; but I, too, have been making some arrangements. I have written to
Crappy Zachy--he is sure to lead him to the best houses. He must bring a
girl home who has plenty of good coin."

"Plenty of coin doesn't constitute goodness," replied the mother.

"I know that!" cried the farmer, with a sneer. "But why shouldn't he
bring home one who is good and has plenty of coin into the bargain?"

The mother sat silent for a time, but after awhile she said:

"You've referred him to Crappy Zachy. It was at Crappy Zachy's that
Josenhans's boy was boarded out."

Thus her pronouncing the name aloud showed that her former remembrances
were dawning upon her; and now she became conscious what those
remembrances were. And her mind often reverted to them during the events
that were soon to occur, and which we are about to relate.

"I don't know what you're talking about," said the farmer. "What's the
child to you? Why don't you say that I did the thing wisely?"

"Yes, yes, it was wisely done," the wife acquiesced. But the tardy
praise did not satisfy the old man, and he went out grumbling.

A certain apprehension that things might go wrong with his boy after
all, and that perhaps he had been in too great a hurry, made the farmer
gruff, for the present, toward everybody about him.




CHAPTER XIV

THE RIDER ON THE WHITE HORSE


On the evening of the same day that John had ridden away from
Zumarshofen, Crappy Zachy came to Farmer Rodel's house and sat with the
proprietor in the back room for a long time, reading a letter to him in
a low voice.

"You must give me a hundred crowns if I put this business through, and I
want that down in writing," said Crappy Zachy.

"I should think that fifty would be enough, and even that is a pretty
bit of money."

"No, not a red farthing less than a round hundred, and in saying that I
am making you a present of a hundred. But I am willing to do that much
for you and your sister--in fact, I am always glad to do a kindness to a
fellow-townsman. Why, in Endringen or in Siebenhofen they would gladly
give me double the money. Your Rose is a very respectable girl--nobody
can deny that--but she's nothing extraordinary, and one might ask,
what's the price of a dozen such?"

"Be quiet! I won't have that!"

"Yes, yes, I'll be quiet, and not disturb you while you're writing. Now,
write at once."

Farmer Rodel was obliged to do as Crappy Zachy wished, and when he had
done writing, he said:

"What do you think? Shall I tell Rose about it?"

"Certainly, you must do so. But don't let her show that she knows about
it, nor tell any one in the place; it won't bear being talked about. All
people have their enemies, you and your sister like the rest, you may
believe me. Tell Rose to wear her everyday clothes and milk the cows
when he comes. I shall have him come to your house alone. You read what
Farmer Landfried writes; the boy has a will of his own, and would run
away directly, if he suspected that there was anything being prepared
for him. And you must send this very evening to Lauterbach and have your
brother-in-law's white horse brought over here; then I'll get somebody
to send the suitor over to you in quest of the horse. Don't let him
notice that you know anything about it either."

Crappy Zachy went away, and Farmer Rodel called his sister and his wife
into the little back room. After exacting a promise of secrecy, he
imparted to them that a suitor for Rose was coming the next day, a
prince of a man, who had a first-rate farm--in fact, it was none other
than John, the son of Farmer Landfried of Zumarshofen. He then gave the
further directions which Crappy Zachy had recommended, and enjoined the
strictest secrecy.

After supper, however, Rose could not refrain from asking Barefoot, if,
in case of her marrying, she would not go with her as her maid; she
would give her double wages, and at the same time she would then not
have to cross the Rhine and work in a factory. Barefoot gave an evasive
answer; for she was not inclined to go with Rose, knowing that the
latter had selfish motives for making the proposal. In the first place
she wanted to boast of the fact that she was going to get a husband,
and, indeed, a first-rate one; and in the second place she was anxious
to get Barefoot to manage her household affairs, about which she had
until then scarcely bothered herself at all. Now Barefoot would have
been very glad to do this for a mistress who was kind to her, but not
for Rose. And besides, if she were to leave her present mistress, she
did not intend to be a servant again anyway, but would work for herself,
even if it were in a factory with her brother.

Barefoot was just going to bed, when her mistress called her and
intrusted the secret to her, adding:

"You have always had patience with Rose, and now while her suitor is
here, have double patience, in order that there may be no disturbance in
the house."

"Yes, but I consider it wrong that she wants to milk the cows just this
once; that's deceiving the worthy man, for she can't milk at all."

"You and I cannot alter the world," said the mistress. "I think it's
hard enough for you to bear your own lot--let others do what they will."

Barefoot lay down, mournfully reflecting how people cheat one another
without the least scruple. She did not know who the suitor was who was
going to be deceived, but she was inwardly sorry for the poor young man.
And she was doubly bewildered when she thought: "Who knows, perhaps Rose
will be just as much deceived in him as he in her?"

Quite early in the morning, when Barefoot was looking out of her window,
she suddenly started back as if a bullet had struck her forehead.

"Heavens! What is this?" She passed her hands over her eyes hastily,
then opened them wide, and asked herself as if in a dream: "Why, it's
the stranger of the wedding at Endringen! He has come to the village! He
has come to fetch you! No, he knows nothing of you! But he shall
know!--but no, what are you saying!"

He comes nearer and nearer, but does not look up. A fullblossomed
carnation falls from Barefoot's hand, but lands on the valise behind
him; he does not see it, and it lies there in the road. Barefoot hurries
down and recovers the treacherous token. And now the truth comes over
her like the dawning of a terrible day. This is the suitor for
Rose--this is he of whom she spoke last evening. And is this man to be
deceived?

In the barn, kneeling on the clover which she was going to feed the
cows, Barefoot fervently prayed to Heaven to preserve the stranger from
ever marrying Rose. That he should ever be her own, was a thought she
dared not entertain--and yet she could not bear to banish it.

As soon as she had finished milking, she hurried across to Black
Marianne; she wanted to ask her what she should do. But Black Marianne
was lying grievously ill; furthermore she had grown very deaf, and could
hardly understand connected words. Barefoot did not dare to shout the
secret that she had half confided to her and that the old woman had half
guessed, loudly enough for Marianne to understand it, for people in the
street might hear her. And so she came back, not knowing what to do.

Barefoot had to go out into the fields and stay there the whole day
planting turnips. At every step she hesitated and thought of going home
and telling the stranger everything; but the consciousness of her
subordinate position in the house, as well as a special consideration,
kept her to the duty that she had been called upon to perform.

"If he is foolish and inconsiderate enough," she soliloquized, "to rush
into this affair without a thought, then there's no helping him, and he
deserves no help. And--" she was fain to console herself at last--"and
besides, engaged is not married anyway."

But all day long she was restless and unhappy. In the evening when she
had returned from the fields and was milking the cows, and Rose was
sitting with a full pail beside a cow that had been milked, she heard
the stranger talking with Farmer Rodel in the nearby stable. They were
bargaining about a white horse. But how came the white horse in the
stable?--until then they had had none.

"Who is that singing yonder?" the stranger now asked.

"That's my sister," answered the farmer. And at the word Barefoot joined
in and sang the second voice, powerfully and defiantly, as if she wanted
to compel him to ask who _that_ was over yonder. But her singing had the
disadvantage that it prevented her from hearing whether or not he did
ask. And as Rose went across the yard with her pail, where the white
horse had just been led out for inspection, the farmer said:

"There, that's my sister. Rose, leave your work, and get something ready
for supper. We have a relative for a guest--I'll bring him in
presently."

"And it was the little one yonder, who sang the second voice?" inquired
the stranger. "Is she a sister of yours, too?"

"No--she, in a way, is an adopted child. My father was her guardian."
The farmer knew very well that charity of this kind conduced to the
credit of a house, and he therefore avoided saying outright that
Barefoot was a maid.

Barefoot felt inwardly glad that the stranger knew something about her.
"If he is wise," she reflected, "he will be sure to ask me about Rose.
Then an opportunity will come for me to save him from a misfortune."

Rose brought in the supper, and the stranger was quite surprised to find
that such good fare could be made ready so quickly--he did not know that
it had all been prepared beforehand. Rose apologized by asking him to
make shift with their plain fare, though he was doubtless accustomed to
better things at home. She reckoned, not without acuteness, that the
mention of a well-deserved fame would be gratifying to any one.

Barefoot was told to remain in the kitchen that day, and to give all the
dishes into Rose's hands. She entreated over and over again: "For
goodness sake, tell me who he is! What's his name?"--but Rose gave her
no answer. The mistress, however, at last solved the mystery by saying:

"You can tell her now--it's John, the son of Farmer Landfried of
Zumarshofen. Amrei, you've a keepsake from her, haven't you?"

"Yes, yes," replied Barefoot; and she was obliged to sit down by the
hearth, for her knees trembled under her. How wonderful all this was!
And so he was the son of her first benefactress! "Now he must be told!
If the whole village stones me for it, I shan't bear it!" she said to
herself.

The stranger started to go, and his hosts escorted him to the door; but
on the steps he turned about and said:

"My pipe has gone out--and I like best to light it for myself with a
coal."

He evidently wanted to see how things looked in the kitchen. Rose pushed
in ahead of him and handed him a coal with the tongs, standing, as she
did so, directly in front of Barefoot, who was still sitting on the
hearth by the chimney.

[Late that night Barefoot went out to find somebody whom she could get
to warn the stranger not to marry Rose. She knew of nobody to whom she
dared intrust so delicate a commission; she thought of Damie, but
remembered that he was not allowed to enter the village. Finally, wet
and chilled, as a result of wandering about through the fields barefoot,
she returned home and went to bed.]




CHAPTER XV

BANISHED AND RELEASED


The following morning, when Barefoot awoke, she found the necklace that
she had once received from Dame Landfried lying on her bed, and she had
to think for some time before she remembered that she herself had taken
it out the night before, and had looked at it a long, long time.

[Illustration: WHILE SHE WAS MILKING JOHN ASKED HER ALL KINDS OF
QUESTIONS]

When she started to get up, all her limbs felt numb; and clasping her
hands with difficulty, she moaned:

"For Heaven's sake let me not be ill now! I have no time for it--I
mustn't be ill now"--as if in anger at her bodily weakness.

Determined to overcome it by force, she got up; but how she started back
when she looked at herself in the glass! Her whole face was swollen!
"That's your punishment," she said, half-aloud, "for running about so
last night, and wanting to call upon strangers, even bad people, to help
you!" She beat her disfigured face as if to chastise herself, and then
tied a cloth around it tightly and went about her work.

When the mistress saw her, she wanted to put her to bed again at once.
Rose, on the other hand, scolded, and declared that it was a bit of
spite on Barefoot's part, this being ill just now--she had done it out
of meanness, knowing that she would be wanted. Barefoot made no reply.

When she was out in the cow-shed, putting clover into the mangers, she
heard a clear voice say:

"Good morning! At work so early?"

It was _his_ voice.

"Not very hard," replied Barefoot; and she ground her teeth with
vexation, more on account of the tormenting demon who had disfigured her
face, so that it was impossible that he should recognize her, than
anything else.

Should she make herself known now?--it was better to wait and see.

While she was milking, John asked her all sorts of questions; first he
inquired about the quantity of milk the cows yielded, and whether any of
it was sold, and how; then he wanted to know who made the butter, and if
anybody in the house kept an account of it.

Barefoot trembled. It was now in her power to put her rival out of the
way by declaring what kind of a person she was! But how strangely
involved and tangled are the strings of action! She was ashamed of the
idea of speaking evil of her master's family, though, in truth, she
would have spoken so only of Rose, for the others were good. But she
was aware that it was shameful for a servant to betray the faults of the
inner management of the house. She therefore secured herself from this
by saying to herself:

"It does not become a servant to judge his master. And they are all
good-hearted," she added, prompted by her strong sense of justice. For,
in truth, Rose, too, was good-hearted, in spite of her hot temper and
domineering spirit. And now a good idea occurred to her; if she were to
tell the truth about Rose now, he would go away directly and would
certainly escape from Rose--but then he would be gone. Therefore, with
wonderful good sense, she said:

"You seem to be a prudent man, and your parents have a name for
prudence, too. Now, you know that in one day one cannot get to know even
a horse properly, and so I think you ought to stay here a little while.
Later on we two will get to know each other better, and one word will
bring on another, and if I can be of service to you, I will not fail
you. I don't know, however, why you question me like this--?"

"You are a little rogue--but I like you," said John. Barefoot started so
that the cow winced and almost over-turned the milk-pail.

"And you shall have a good present, too," added John; and he let a
dollar that he already had in his hand, slip back into his pocket.

"I'll tell you something more," Barefoot resumed, moving on to another
cow; "the sexton is an enemy of my master's--I want you to know that in
case he tries to get hold of you."

"Yes, yes, it's evidently worth while to talk with you. But I notice
that you have a swollen face; there's no point in your tying your head
up, if you continue to go about barefoot like that."

"I am used to it," replied Barefoot, "but I will follow your advice.
Thank you."

Footsteps were heard approaching.

"We will talk together again," said the young man, and then he went
away.

"I thank you, swollen cheek," said Barefoot to herself, stroking her
disfigured face; "you have done me a good turn. Through you I can talk
to him as if I were not here; I can speak behind a mask, like a clown on
Shrove Tuesday. Hurrah--that is merry!"

It was wonderful how this inward cheerfulness almost counteracted her
bodily fever. She felt merely tired--indescribably tired; and she was
half-pleased and half-sorry when she saw the foreman greasing the wheels
of the Bernese chaise-wagon, and heard that her master was going to ride
out with the stranger immediately. She hurried into the kitchen, and
there she overheard the farmer saying to John in the parlor:

"If you care to take a ride, John, that would be fine. Then, Rose, you
can sit with me in the Bernese chaise, and you, John, can ride alongside
of us."

"But your wife is going too, isn't she?" inquired John, after a pause.

"I have a child to nurse, and cannot go away," said the farmer's wife.

"And I don't like to be driving about the country on a working-day,"
said Rose.

"Oh nonsense! When a cousin comes, you may take a holiday," urged the
farmer; for he wanted Rose to go with him at once to Farmer Furche's,
that the latter might entertain no hopes for his own daughter. Moreover
he was aware that a little excursion of this kind does more to bring
people together than a week's visit in the house.

John was silent; and the farmer in his urgency nudged him, and said in a
half-whisper:

"Do you speak to her; maybe she will be more apt to do as you say, and
will go with us."

"I think," said John aloud, "that your sister is quite right in
preferring not to be driving about the country in the middle of the
week. I'll harness my white horse with yours, and then we can see how
they pull together. And we shall be back by supper-time, if not before."

Barefoot, who heard all this, bit her lips to keep from laughing.

"You see," she thought to herself, "you have not even got him by the
halter yet, much less by the bridle. He won't let himself be driven
about the country like a betrothed man, and then not be able to get
back."

She felt so warm with joy, that she was obliged to take the handkerchief
from her face.

It was a strange day in the house. Rose repeated half-angrily the
peculiar questions that John had asked her. Barefoot rejoiced inwardly;
for all that he wanted to know--and she knew well why he wanted to know
it--could have been satisfactorily answered by her.

"But what good does it all do?" she asked herself. "He does not know
you, and even if he did know you, you are a poor orphan and a servant,
and nothing could ever come of it. He does not know you, and will not
ask about you."

In the evening, when the two men came back, Barefoot had already been
able to remove the handkerchief from her forehead; but the one she had
tied over her temples and under her chin, she was obliged to keep on
still, drawn tightly around her face. John himself seemed to have
neither tongue nor eyes for her. But his dog was with her in the kitchen
all the time, and she fed the creature and stroked it and talked to it.

"Yes, if you could only tell him everything, you would be sure to tell
him the whole truth." The dog laid its head on Barefoot's lap, and
looked up at her with intelligent eyes; then he seemed to shake his
head, as if to say: "It is too bad, but unfortunately I cannot speak."

Barefoot now went into the bed-room and began singing to the children
again, although they had long been asleep; she sang various songs, but
most of all the waltz to which she had danced with John. John listened
to her as if bewildered, and seemed to be absent-minded when he spoke.
Rose went into the room, and told Barefoot to be quiet.

Late at night, when Barefoot had just drawn some water for Black
Marianne and was returning to her parents' house with the full pail on
her head, John met her as he was going to the tavern. With a suppressed
voice she bade him a "Good evening."

"Oh, it is you!" said John. "Where are you going with that water at this
time?"

"To Black Marianne."

"Who is that?"

"A poor woman, who is sick in bed."

"Why, Rose told me that there were no poor people here."

"Good heavens! there are more than enough. But Rose no doubt said that,
because she thought it would be a disgrace to the village. She's
good-hearted, you may believe me--and she's fond of giving things away."

"You are a loyal friend. But you mustn't stand there with that heavy
pail. May I go with you?"

"Why not?"

"You are right; you are doing a kind deed, and nothing can harm you. And
you need not be afraid of me."

"I am not afraid of anybody, and of you least of all. I saw today that
you are kind."

"When did you see that?"

"When you advised me how to cure my swollen face. Your advice was
good--you see, I have my shoes on now."

"That's a good thing that you are obedient," said John with an approving
glance; and the dog, too, seemed to notice his approval of Barefoot, for
he jumped up at her and licked her free hand.

"Come here, Lux!" cried John.

"No, let him alone," said Barefoot. "We are already good friends--he has
been in the kitchen with me all day long. All dogs are fond of me and of
my brother."

"So you have a brother?"

"Yes, and I wanted to appeal to you very earnestly to take him as a
servant on your farm. You would be doing a very charitable deed, and he
would be sure to serve you faithfully all his life."

"Where is your brother?"

"Down yonder in the woods; just now he is a charcoal-burner."

"Why, we have few trees and no kiln at all. I could more easily find
work for a field-laborer."

"He'd be able to do that work, too. But here is the house."

"I'll wait until you come out," said John. Barefoot went in to put down
the water, and arrange the fire, and make Marianne comfortable in bed.

When she came out John was still standing there and the dog jumped up at
her. For a long time they stood under the parental tree, which rustled
quietly and bowed its branches. They talked of all kinds of things; John
praised her cleverness and her quick mind, and at last said:

"If you should ever want to change your place, you would be the very
person for my mother."

"That is the greatest praise that anybody in the world could give me!"
Barefoot declared. "I still have a keepsake from your mother." And then
she related the incident of their meeting his mother, and both laughed
when Barefoot told how Damie could not forget that Dame Landfried owed
him a pair of leather-breeches.

"And he shall have them," John declared.

They then walked back together as far as the village, and John gave her
his hand when he bade her "Good night." Barefoot wanted to tell him that
he had shaken hands with her once before, but, as if frightened by the
thought, she fled away from him and ran into the house; she did not even
return his "Good night." John, puzzled and thoughtful, returned to his
room at the "Heathcock."

The next morning Barefoot found that the swelling in her face had
vanished as if by magic. And never had she caroled more gaily through
the house and yard, through the stable and barn, than she did today. And
yet today was the day when it was to be decided, the day that John was
to declare himself. Farmer Rodel did not want to have his sister talked
about by any one, in case it should all come to nothing after all.

Nearly the whole day John sat in the room with Rose, who was making a
man's shirt. Toward evening Mistress Rodel's parents came, along with
other relatives. It must be decided one way or the other today.

The roast was sputtering in the kitchen, the pine wood cracking and
snapping, and Barefoot's cheeks were glowing, heated by the fire on the
hearth and the fire that was burning within her. Crappy Zachy walked
back and forth and up and down with an air of great importance, and made
himself very much at home--he even smoked Farmer Rodel's pipe.

"Then it is settled after all," said Barefoot to herself, mournfully.

Night had come. Many lights were burning in the house, and Rose, in
festive attire, was hurrying back and forth between the room and the
kitchen, though she did not know how to give any help. Everything was
ready.

And now the young farmer's wife said to Barefoot:

"Go upstairs and put on your Sunday dress."

"Why?"

"You must wait on the table today, and you'll get a better present."

"I would rather stay in the kitchen."

"No, do as I tell you--and make haste."

Amrei went up to her room and sat down for a moment on her box in order
to get her breath. She was dead tired. If she could only go to sleep now
and never wake up again! But duty called. Hardly had she taken the first
piece of her Sunday dress in her hand, when a feeling of joy came over
her; and the evening sun, sending a red beam into the little attic,
shone upon a pair of glowing cheeks.

"Put on your Sunday dress!" She had but one Sunday dress, and that was
the one she had worn that day at the wedding in Endringen. Every
flutter, every rustle of the dress reminded her of the happiness she had
experienced, and of the waltz she had danced on that eventful day. But
as darkness followed the setting of the sun, so did sorrow follow
gladness; and she said to herself that she was thus adorning herself
only to do honor to John, and to show how much she valued whatever came
from his family, she at last put on the necklace.

Thus, adorned as she had been on the day of the wedding at Endringen,
Amrei came down from her room.

"What is this? What did you dress yourself up like that for?" cried Rose
angrily. She was already anxious and impatient because the visitor was
so long in making his appearance. "Why do you put all your possessions
on? Is that a fit necklace for a servant, with a coin hanging to it? You
take that off directly!"

"No, I shall not do that; for his mother gave it to me when I was a
little child, and I had it on when we danced together at Endringen."

Something was heard to fall on the staircase; but nobody heeded it, for
Rose screamed out:

"What! You good-for-nothing, horrible witch! You would have perished in
rags if we had not taken you up! And now you want to take my betrothed
from me!"

"Don't call him that until he is your betrothed," replied Amrei, with a
strange mixture of feelings in her voice.

"Wait! I'll show you what you've got to do!" shrieked Rose. "Take
that!" and she dragged Barefoot down to the ground and struck her in the
face.

"I'll take my things off! Let me go!" screamed Barefoot.

But Rose let go before she had finished saying it; for, as if he had
risen out of the ground, John was standing before her! He was as pale as
death, and his lips were quivering. He could not speak, but merely
raised his hand to protect Barefoot, who was still kneeling on the
floor.

Barefoot was the first to speak; she cried out:

"Believe me, John, I have never seen her like that before, never in my
whole life! And it was my fault."

"Yes, it was your fault. And, now, come; you shall go with me and be
mine. Will you? I have found you, and I did not seek you. But now you
shall live with me and be my wife. It is God's will."

If any one could have seen Barefoot's eyes then! But no mortal eye has
ever fully seen a flash of lightning in the heavens, for no matter how
firmly we look, our eyes are sure to be dazzled. And there are also
flashes in the human eye which are never fully seen, just as there are
workings in the human heart which are never fully understood. A
momentary flash of joy, such as may brighten the face when the heavens
are opened, darted from Amrei's eyes. She covered her face with both
hands, and the tears ran forth from between her fingers.

John stood with his hand upon her. All the relatives had gathered
around, and were gazing with astonishment at the strange scene.

"What's all this with Barefoot? What's all this?" blustered Farmer
Rodel.

"So, your name is Barefoot?" cried John. He laughed loud and heartily,
and added: "Come, now, will you have me? Say so now, for here we have
witnesses to confirm it. Say 'Yes,' and nothing but death shall part
us!"

"Yes!--and nothing but death shall part us!" cried Barefoot, throwing
herself on his neck.

"Very well--then take her out of this house at once!" roared Farmer
Rodel, foaming with rage.

"Yes, you need not tell me to do that. I thank you for your good
reception, cousin. When you come to us some day, we'll make it quits,"
replied John. He put both hands up to his head, and cried: "Good
heavens! Mother, mother, how glad you will be!"

"Go up, Barefoot, and take your box away at once; for nothing belonging
to you shall remain in my house!" commanded Farmer Rodel.

"Very well," replied John; "but that can be done with less noise. Come,
Barefoot, I'll go with you. But tell me what your real name is."

"Amrei."

"I was once to have married an Amrei--she is the 'Butter Countess!'--you
are my Salt Countess! Hurrah! Now come; I should like to see your room,
where you have lived so long. Now you shall have a large house!"

The dog, with the hairs on his back standing up like bristles, kept
walking around Farmer Rodel; he saw that the latter would have been glad
to choke John. Only when John and Barefoot were at the top of the stairs
did the dog come running after them.

John let the box stand, because he could not take it on his horse. But
they packed Barefoot's possessions into the sack which she had inherited
from her father.

As they were descending the stairs together on their way out, Barefoot
felt somebody quietly press her hand in the dark--it was her mistress
who was thus taking leave of her. At the threshold, with her hand upon
the door-post against which she had so often leaned, she said sadly:

"May God reward this house for all good, and forgive it for all evil!"

They had gone but a few paces when Barefoot called out: "Good heavens! I
have forgotten all my shoes! They are upstairs on the shelf!"

Scarcely had she spoken the words, when the shoes, as if they were
running after their owner, came flying out of the window and down into
the street.

"Run to the devil in them!" cried a voice from the garret window. The
voice sounded masculine, and yet it belonged to Rose.

Barefoot collected the shoes and took them to the tavern with John, who
carried the sack on his back.

The moon was shining brightly, and the whole village was already asleep.
Barefoot would not stay at the tavern.

"Then I should like to go home this very night," said John.

"Before I do anything else," replied Barefoot, "I must go to Black
Marianne. She has filled a mother's place for me, and I have not seen
her today, and have not been able to do anything for her. And besides
that, she's ill. Alas! It is too bad that I shall have to leave her; but
what am I to do? Come, go with me to her."

They went together to the house. When Barefoot opened the inside door a
moonbeam fell upon the angel on the stove, just as a sunbeam had fallen
on that day of long ago. And it seemed to smile and dance more merrily.

Barefoot cried with a loud voice:

"Marianne! Marianne! Wake up, Marianne! Happiness and blessing are here!
Wake up!"

The old woman sat up in bed; the moonlight fell upon her face and neck.
She opened her eyes wide and said:

"What is it? What is it? Who calls?"

"Rejoice! Here I bring you my John!"

"My John!" screamed the old woman, "Good God, my John! How long--how
long--I have thee--I have thee! Oh God, I thank thee a thousand and a
thousand times! Oh, my child, my boy! I see thee with a thousand eyes,
and a thousandfold--No, there--there--thy hand! Come here--there--there
in the chest is thy dowry! Take the cloth! My son! my boy! Yes, yes, she
is thine! John, my son, my son! my--"

The old woman laughed convulsively, and fell back in her bed. Amrei and
John had knelt down beside her, and when they stood up and bent over
her, she had ceased to breathe.

"Oh, heavens! She is dead! Joy killed her!" exclaimed Barefoot. "She
took you for her son. She died happy. Oh, why is it thus in the world,
why is it thus?" She sank down by the bed again, and sobbed bitterly.

At last John raised her up, and Barefoot closed the dead woman's eyes.
For a long time they stood together beside the bed; then Barefoot said:

"Come, I will wake up people who will watch by her body. God has been
very gracious; she would have no one to care for her when I was gone.
And God has given her the greatest joy in the last moment of her life.
How long, oh, how long, she waited for that joy!"

"Yes, but you cannot stay here now," said John. "You must go with me
this very night."

Barefoot woke up the gravedigger's wife, and sent her to Black Marianne.
Her mind was so wonderfully composed that she remembered to tell the
woman that the flowers, which stood on her window-ledge at the farm,
were to be planted on Black Marianne's grave; and especially that she
was not to forget to put Black Marianne's hymn-book under her head, as
she had always wished.

When at last she had arranged everything, she stood up erect and,
stretching out her arms, said:

"Now everything is done. You must forgive me, good man, that I was
obliged to bring you to a house of sorrow; and forgive me, too, if I am
not now as I should wish to be. I see now that all is well, and that God
has ordered it for the best. But still I shake with fear in every
limb--it is a hard thing to die. You cannot imagine how I have almost
puzzled my brains out about it. But now all is well, and I will be
cheerful--for I am the happiest girl in the world!"

"Yes, you are right.--But come, let us go. Will you ride with me on my
horse?" asked John.

"Yes. Is it the white horse that you had at the wedding at Endringen?"

"To be sure!"

"And, oh, that Farmer Rodel! If he didn't send to Lauterbach the night
before you came and have a white horse brought from there, so as to get
you to come to his house. Holloa! white horse, go home again!" she
concluded, almost merrily.

And thus their thoughts and feelings returned to ordinary life, and from
it they learned to appreciate their happiness anew.




CHAPTER XVI

SILVERSTEP


[The two lovers mount the white horse, which Amrei suggests they call
"Silverstep," and start out through the moonlight for John's home. As
they ride along they talk and sing and tell stories and enjoy themselves
as only lovers can. At Amrei's request, they stop on the way to see
Damie, who is with Coaly Mathew in the forest; Amrei tells him all that
has happened, and John promises to make him an independent herdsman, and
gives him a silver-mounted pipe. Damie, inwardly rejoiced, but, as
usual, not over-appreciative, reminds him of the "pair of leather
breeches," a debt which John also promises to pay. Damie then displays
unexpected cleverness by performing a mock-ceremony, in which he compels
John to ask him, as his sister's only living relative, for Amrei's hand.
Damie surprises his sister by doing this with considerable histrionic
success, so that the two lovers start out again more merry than ever.]




CHAPTER XVII

OVER HILL AND VALE


The day had dawned when the two lovers reached the town; and already
long before, when they encountered the first early-riser, they had
alighted. They felt that they must have a strange appearance, and
regarded this first person they met as a herald who had come to remind
them of the fact that they must adapt themselves to the order of human
conventionalities. So they dismounted, and John led the horse with one
hand and held Amrei with the other. Thus they went on in silence, and as
often as they looked at each other, their faces shone like those of
children newly waked from sleep; but as often as they looked down, they
became thoughtful and anxious about the immediate future.

Amrei, as if she had already been discussing the subject with John, and
in complete confidence that his mind must have been dwelling on the same
thoughts, now said:

"To be sure, it would have been more sensible if we had done the thing
in a more normal way. You should have gone home first, and meanwhile I
should have stayed somewhere--at Coaly Mathew's in the forest, if we
could have done no better. Then you could have come with your mother to
fetch me, or could have written to me, and I could have come to you with
my Damie. But do you know what I think?"

"Not everything you think."

"I think that regret is the most stupid feeling one can possibly
cherish. Do what you will, you cannot make yesterday into today. What we
did, in the midst of our rejoicing, that was right, and must remain
right. Now that our minds have been become more sober again, we can't
waste any time reproving ourselves. What we have to think of now is, how
shall we do everything right in the future? But you are such a
right-minded man that you will know what is right. And you can tell me
everything you think, only tell me honestly; if you say what you mean,
you won't hurt me, but if you keep anything back from me, you will hurt
me. But you don't regret it, do you?"

"Can you answer a riddle?" asked John.

"Yes, as a child I used to be able to do that well."

"Then tell me what this is--it is a simple, plain word: Take away the
first letter, and you're ready to tear your hair out; put it back again,
and all is firm and sure?"

"That's easy," said Barefoot, "easy as anything; it's Truth and Ruth."

At the first inn by the gate they stopped off; and Amrei, when she and
John were alone in the room, and the latter had ordered some good
coffee, said:

"How splendidly the world is arranged! These people have provided a
house, and tables, and benches, and chairs, and a kitchen, in which the
fire is burning, and they have coffee, and milk and sugar, and fine
dishes, and it is all ready for us as if we had ordered it. And when we
go farther on we find more people and more houses, with all we want in
them. It's like it is in the fairy-tale, 'Table, be covered!'"

"But you have to have the 'Loaf, come out of the bag!' too," said John,
and he reached into his pocket and drew forth a handful of money.
"Without that you'll get nothing."

"Yes, to be sure," said Amrei; "whoever has those wheels can roll
through the world. But tell me, John--did coffee ever taste to you in
your whole life like this? And the fresh white bread! Only you have
ordered too much; we cannot manage all this. The bread I shall take with
me, but it's a pity about the good coffee. How many poor people could be
refreshed by it, and we must let it go to waste. And yet you have to pay
for it just the same."

"That's no matter; one cannot figure so accurately in the world."

"Yes, yes, you are right. You see, I have been accustomed to do with
little. You must not take it amiss if I say things of that kind--I do it
without thinking."

Presently Amrei got up. Her face was glowing, and when she stood before
the glass, she exclaimed:

"Gracious heavens! How can it be? All this seems almost impossible!"

"Well, there are still some hard planks to pierce; but I am not worrying
about that. Now lie down and rest for a short time while I look for a
Bernese chaise-wagon--you can't ride on horseback with me in the
daytime--and we want one anyway."

"I cannot sleep--I have a letter to write to Haldenbrunn. I am away from
there now, and yet I enjoyed a great many good times there. And I have
other matters to settle, besides."

"Very well, do that until I come back."

John went out, and Amrei wrote a long letter to the Magistrate in
Haldenbrunn, thanking the entire community for benefits received, and
promising to adopt a child from the place some day, if it were possible;
and she once more begged to have Black Marianne's hymn-book placed under
the good old woman's head. When she had finished, she sealed the letter
and pressed her lips tight together with the remark:

"So! Now I have done my duty to the people of Haldenbrunn."

But she quickly tore the letter open again, for she considered it her
duty to show John what she had written. But a long time passed and he
did not return. And Amrei blushed when the chatty hostess said:

"I suppose your husband has some business at the Town-hall?"

It seemed to strike her with a strange shock to have John called her
"husband" for the first time.

She could not answer, and the hostess looked at her in wonder. She knew
no other way of escaping from her strange glances than by going out in
front of the house, where she sat on some piled-up boards for a long
time, waiting for John. It was, indeed, a long time before he did come
back; and when at last she caught sight of him, she said:

"When something calls you away like that again, you'll take me with you,
won't you?"

"Oh," he answered, "so you were afraid, were you? Did you think I had
gone off and left you? What would you think if I were to leave you here
and simply ride away?"

Amrei started, and then she said, severely:

"I can't say that you are very witty; in fact to joke about such a thing
as that is miserably stupid. I am sorry that you said that; for you did
something that is bad for you if you realize it, and bad for you if you
don't realize it. You talk about riding away, and think that I am to cry
to amuse you. Do you imagine, perhaps, that because you have a horse and
money, you can do as you please with me? No, your horse carried us away
together, and I came with you. What would you think if I were to say
jokingly: 'How would it be if I left you alone?' I am sorry that you
made such a jest!"

"Yes, yes, I'll say that you are right. But now, forget about it."

"No! I talk of a thing as long as there is anything about it in me, when
I am the offended person, and it is for me to stop talking about it when
I choose. And you offended yourself, too, in this matter--I mean your
real self, the person you are, and ought to be. When any one else says
anything that is not right, I can jump over it, but on you there must
not be a single spot; and believe me, to joke about such a thing as
that, is as if one took the crucifix yonder to play with as a doll."

"Oho, it's not as bad as that! But it seems to me you can't appreciate a
jest."

"I can appreciate one very well, as you shall see, but no such a one as
that. But now, that's enough about it; now I have finished and shall
think nothing more of it."

This little incident showed both of them early that, with all their
mutual devotion, they must be careful with each other. Amrei felt that
she had been too severe, whereas John was made to realize that it did
not behoove him to make jest of Amrei's solitary position, and of her
absolute dependence upon him. They did not say this to each other, but
each of them knew that the other felt it.

The little cloud that had thus come up soon evaporated under the bright
sun that now broke through it. And Amrei rejoiced like a child when a
pretty, green Bernese chaise-wagon came, with a round, padded seat in
it; and before the horse had been hitched to it, she took her seat and
clapped her hands with joy.

"Now you have only to make me fly!" she said to John, who was busy
hitching the horse. "I have ridden horseback with you, and now I am
driving with you; there is nothing left for me to do but fly." [The two
lovers now started out again, and were supremely happy as they rode
along, discussing all sorts of things. They came upon an old woman by
the road-side, and it gave Amrei a thrill of satisfaction she never
before had felt to be able to throw out a pair of shoes to her. John
commended this charitable instinct in her, and then began to tell her
all about his home.]

Was it by a tacit agreement, or was it due to the influence which the
present time exerted upon them, that they spoke not a word of how their
arrival at John's house was to be arranged until toward noon, when they
reached the outskirts of Zumarshofen? Only when they began to meet
people who knew John, and who saluted him with glances of wonder at his
companion, did he declare to Amrei that he had thought of two ways in
which the thing might best be done. Either he would take Amrei to his
sister, who lived a short distance further on--one could see the steeple
of her village peering up from behind a hill--and then go home alone and
explain everything, or else he would take Amrei home at once--that is,
she should get down half a mile before they got there, and enter the
house alone in the character of a maid.

Amrei showed great cleverness in explaining what should guide them in
this matter, and what might come of their adopting either of the two
methods of procedure proposed by John. If she stopped at his sister's,
she would first have to win over to her side a person who would not be
the one with whom the final decision lay, and it might result in all
kinds of complications, the end of which could not be foreseen. And
moreover, it would always be an unpleasant reflection, and there would
be all sorts of remarks made about it--as if she had not dared to go
straight to the house. The second plan seemed to her the better one; but
it went against her very soul to enter the house by means of a
deception. His mother, to be sure, had promised years ago to take her
into her service; but she did not want to go into her service now, and
it would be almost like stealing to try to worm herself into favor with
the old people in that way. And furthermore in such a disguise she would
be sure to do everything clumsily; she would not be able to be natural
and straightforward, and if she had to place a chair for his father, she
would be sure to overturn it, for she would always be thinking: "You are
doing this to deceive him." Moreover, even supposing all this could be
done, how could she afterward appear before the servants, when they
learned that their mistress had been obliged to smuggle herself into the
house as a maid? And she would not be able to speak a single word with
John all the time. She closed her explanation with the words:

"I have told you this only because you wanted to hear my opinion, too,
and if you talk anything over with me, I must speak out freely what is
in my mind. But I tell you, at the same time, whatever you wish, and
whatever you tell me to do, I shall do it. If you say it should be so,
so it shall be. I'll obey you without objection, and whatever you lay
upon me to do, that shall I do as best I can."

"Yes, yes, you are right," said John, absorbed in thought. "They are
both crooked ways, the first the less so. But now that we are so near
home, we must make up our minds quickly. Do you see that bare patch in
the forest yonder on the hill, with the little hut on it? And do you see
the cows, which look as small as beetles? That's our upland pasture,
that's where I intend to put your Damie."

Amrei cried out in amazement:

"Good heavens! To think where men will venture!--But that must be good
pasturing land."

"So it is; but when father gives up the farm to me, I shall introduce
more stall-feeding--it's the better way. But old people are fond of
retaining old customs. But why are we chattering again? And now that we
are so near! If I had only thought about this sooner! My head seems on
fire."

"Only keep calm; we must think it over quietly. I have a vague idea of a
way it can be done, but it doesn't seem quite plain yet."

"Ah! What do you think?"

"No, you think about it too. Perhaps you'll hit upon the right way
yourself. It's a matter for you to arrange, and both of our minds are in
such confusion now, that it will be a relief to us if we both hit upon a
way at once."

"Yes, I have an idea already. In the next village but one there is a
clergyman, whom I know very well, and who will give us the best advice.
But wait! Here is a better way yet. Suppose I stay yonder in the valley
at the miller's, and you go up to the farm and simply tell my parents
the whole story. You'll have my mother on your side directly; and you
are clever, and you'll manage my father in no time so that you can wind
him around your finger. Yes, that is the best way. Then we shan't have
to wait, and we shall have asked no stranger for help. What do you
think? Is that putting too much upon you?"

"That was exactly my idea too. So now there is no more considering to be
done, no more at all. That way shall stand as fast as if it were down in
ink. That's the way it shall be done, and 'quick to work makes the
master.' Oh, you don't know what a dear, good, splendid, honest fellow
you are!"

"No, it's you! But that is all the same now, for we two are but one
honest person, and so we shall remain. Look here--give me your hand;
that yonder is our first field. God greet thee, wifee, for now thou art
at home! And hurrah! there's our stork flying up. Stork! cry 'Welcome;'
this is your new mistress! 'I'll tell you more later!' Now, Amrei, don't
be gone too long, and send some one down to me at the mill as soon as
you can--if the wagoner is at home, you'd best send him, for he can run
like a hare. There, do you see that house yonder, with the stork's nest,
and the two barns on the hillside, to the left of the wood? There's a
linden by the house--do you see it?"

"Yes."

"That's our house. Now, come, get you down. You can't miss your way
now."

John got down and helped Amrei out of the chaise. The girl, holding the
necklace, which she had put into her pocket, like a rosary in her
clasped hands, prayed silently; John also took off his hat, and his lips
moved. The two did not say another word to each other, but Amrei went on
alone. John stood looking after her for a long time, leaning against the
white horse. Once she turned about and tried to coax the dog to return
to his master. But he would not go; he would run aside into the field,
and then start to follow her again; and not until John whistled, did the
creature come back to him.

John drove on to the mill and stopped there. He learned that his father
had been there an hour ago to wait for him, but had gone away again.
John was glad to hear that his father was strong and on his feet again,
and glad because he knew that Amrei would now find both his parents at
home. The people in the mill could not understand why John lingered with
them, and yet would hardly listen to a word they said. He kept going in
and out, and looking up the road toward the farm; for John was very
anxious and restless. He counted the steps that Amrei had to go; now she
would be in the fields, now she would have to go to this, now to that
hedge; now she would be speaking to his parents. And after all he could
not completely satisfy himself as to just what she would be doing.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE FIRST HEARTH-FIRE


Meanwhile Amrei went on, wrapped in thought. Her manner showed the
effect of the self-reliance she had learned to practice in her
childhood. It was not for nothing that she had been accustomed to solve
riddles, and that from day to day she had struggled with life's
difficulties. The whole strength of the character she had acquired was
firmly and securely implanted within her. Without further question, as
a man goes forward to meet a necessity, quiet and self-possessed, so did
she, boldly and of good courage, go on her way.

She had not gone far when she saw a farmer sitting by the wayside, with
a red cane between his legs; and on this cane he was resting his two
hands and his chin.

"God greet you," said Amrei. "Are you enjoying a rest?"

"Yes. Where are you going?"

"Up yonder to the farm. Are you going there too? If so, you may lean on
me."

"Yes, that is the way," said the old man with a grin. "Thirty years ago
I should have cared more about it, if such a pretty girl had said that
to me; I should have jumped like a colt."

"But to those who can jump like colts one doesn't say such things,"
replied Amrei, laughing.

"You are rich," said the old man. He seemed to like to talk, and smiled
as he took a pinch of snuff out of his horn snuff-box.

"How can you tell that I am rich?"

"Your teeth are worth ten thousand guilders. There's many a one would
give ten thousand guilders to have them in his mouth."

"I have no time for jesting. Now, God keep you!"

"Wait a little. I'll go with you--but you must not walk too fast." Amrei
carefully helped the old man to his feet, and he remarked:

"You are strong,"--and in his teasing way he made himself more helpless
and heavier than he actually was. As they walked along, he asked:

"To whom are you going at the farm?"

"To the farmer and his wife."

"What do you want of them?"

"That I shall tell them."

"Well, if you want anything of them, you had better turn back at once.
The mistress would give you something, but she has no authority to, and
the farmer, he's tight--he's got a board on his neck, and a stiff thumb
into the bargain."

"I don't want anything given me--I bring them something," said Amrei.

On the way they met an older man going to the field with his scythe; and
the old farmer walking with Amrei called out to him with a queer blink
in his eyes:

"Do you know if miserly Farmer Landfried is at home?"

"I think so, but I don't know," answered the man with the scythe, and he
turned away into the field.

There was a peculiar twitching in his face. And now, as he walked along,
his shoulders seemed to Amrei to be shaking up and down; he was
evidently laughing. Amrei looked at her companion's face and saw the
roguery in it. Suddenly she recognized in the withered features the face
of the man to whom she had given a jug of water, years ago, on the
Holderwasen. Snapping her fingers softly, she said to herself:

"Stop! Now I know!" And then she added aloud: "It's wrong of you to
speak in that way of the Farmer to a stranger like me, whom you don't
know, and who might be a relative of his. And I'm sure it is not true
what you say. They do say, to be sure, that the Farmer is tight; but
when you come right down to it, I dare say he has an honest heart, and
simply doesn't like to make an outcry about it when he does a good deed.
And a man who has such good children as his are said to be, must be a
good man himself. And perhaps he likes to make himself out bad before
the world, simply because he doesn't care what others think of him; and
I don't think the worse of him for that."

"You have not left your tongue behind you. Where do you come from?"

"Not from this neighborhood--from the Black Forest."

"What's the name of the place?"

"Haldenbrunn."

"Oh! Have you come all the way from there on foot?"

"No, somebody let me ride with him. He's the son of the Farmer yonder--a
good, honest man."

"Ah, at his age I should have let you ride with me too!"

They had now come to the farm, and the old man went with Amrei into the
room and cried:

"Mother, where are you?"

The wife came out of another room, and Amrei's hands trembled; she would
gladly have fallen upon her neck--but she could not--she dared not.

Then the Farmer, bursting into laughter, said:

"Just think, dame! Here's a girl from Haldenbrunn, and she has something
to say to Farmer Landfried and his wife, but she won't tell me what it
is. Now do you tell her what my name is."

"Why, that's the Farmer himself," said the woman; and she welcomed the
old man home by taking his hat from his head and hanging it up on a peg
over the stove.

"Do you see now?" said the old man to Amrei, triumphantly. "Now say what
you like."

"Won't you sit down," said the mother, pointing to a chair.

Amrei drew a deep breath and began:

"You may believe me when I say that no child could have thought more
about you than I have done, long ago, long before these last days. Do
you remember Josenhans, by the pond, where the road turns off to
Endringen?"

"Surely, surely!" said the two old people.

"Well, I am Josenhans's daughter!"

"Why, I thought I knew you!" exclaimed the old woman. "God greet you!"
She held out her hand to Amrei, and said: "You have grown to be a
strong, comely girl. Now tell me what has brought you here."

"She rode part of the way with our John," the Farmer interposed. "He'll
be here directly."

The mother gave a start. She had an inkling of something to come, and
reminded her husband that, when John went away, she had thought of the
Josenhans children.

"And I have a remembrance from both of you," said Amrei, and she brought
out the necklace and the piece of money wrapped in paper. "You gave me
that the last time you were in our village."

"See there--you lied to me, you told me that you had lost it," cried the
Farmer to his wife, reproachfully.

"And here," continued Amrei, holding out to him the groschen in its
paper cover; "here's the piece of money you gave me when I was keeping
geese on the Holderwasen, and gave you a drink from my jug."

"Yes, yes, that's all right! But what does it all mean? What you've had
given you, you may keep," said the Farmer.

Amrei stood up and said:

"I have one thing to ask you. Let me speak quite freely for a few
minutes, may I?"

"Yes, why not?"

"Look--your John wanted to take me with him and bring me here as a maid.
At any other time I would have been glad to serve in your house, indeed,
rather than anywhere else. But now it would have been dishonest; and to
people to whom I want to be honest all my life long, I won't come for
the first time with a lie in my mouth. Now everything must be as open as
the day. In a word, John and I love each other from the bottom of our
hearts, and he wants to have me for his wife."

"Oho!" cried the Farmer, and he stood up so quickly that one could
easily see that his former helplessness had been only feigned. "Oho!" he
called out again, as if one of his horses were running away.

But his wife put out her hand and held him, saying:

"Let her finish what she has to say."

And Amrei went on:

"Believe me, I have sense enough to know that one cannot take a girl,
out of pity, for a daughter-in-law. You can give me something, you can
give me a great deal, but to take me for your daughter-in-law out of
pity, is something you cannot do, and I do not wish you to do it. I
haven't a groschen of money--oh, yes, the groschen you gave me on the
Holderwasen I still have--for nobody would take it for a groschen," she
added, turning to the Farmer, who could not repress a smile. "I have
nothing of my own, nay, worse than that--I have a brother who is strong
and healthy, but for whom I have to provide. I have kept geese, and I
have been the most insignificant person in the village, and all that is
true. But nobody can say the least harm of me, and that, too, is true.
And as far as those things which are really given to people by God are
concerned, I could say to any princess: 'I don't put myself one hair's
breadth behind you, if you have seven golden crowns on your head.' I
would rather have somebody else say these, things for me, for I am not
fond of talking about myself. But all my life I have been obliged to
speak for myself, and today, for the last time, I do it, when life and
death are at stake. By that I mean--don't misunderstand me--if you won't
have me, I shall go quietly away; I shall do myself no harm, I shall not
jump into the water, or hang myself. I shall merely look for a new
position, and thank God that such a good man once wanted to have me for
his wife; and I'll consider that it was not God's will that it should be
so--" Amrei's voice faltered, and her form seemed to dilate. And then
her voice grew stronger again, as she summoned all her firmness and
said, solemnly: "But prove to yourselves--ask yourselves in your deepest
conscience, whether what you do is God's will.--I have nothing more to
say."

Amrei sat down. All three were silent for a time, and then the old man
said:

"Why, you can preach like a clergyman."

But the mother dried her eyes with her apron, and said:

"Why not? Clergymen have not more than one mind and one heart!"

"Yes, that's you!" cried the old man with a sneer. "There's something of
a parson in you, too. If any one comes to you with a few speeches like
that, you're cooked directly!"

"And you talk as if you would not be cooked or softened till you die,"
retorted the wife.

"Oh, indeed!" said the old man bitterly. "Now look you, you saint from
the lowlands; you're bringing a fine sort of peace into my house; you
have managed already to make my wife turn against me--you have captured
her already. Well, I suppose you can wait until death has carried one
off, and then you can do what you please."

"No!" exclaimed Amrei, "I won't have that! Just as little as I wish that
John should take me for his wife without your blessing, just so little
do I wish that the sin should be in our hearts, that we should both be
waiting for you to die. I scarcely knew my parents, I cannot remember
them--I only love them as one loves God, without ever having seen Him.
But I also know what it is to die. Last night I closed Black Marianne's
eyes; I did what she asked me to do all my life long, and yet now that
she is dead, I sometimes think: How often you were impatient and bitter
toward her, and how many a service you might have done her! And now she
is lying there, and it is all over; you can do nothing more for her, and
you can't crave her forgiveness for anything.--I know what it is to die,
and I will not have--"

"But I will!" cried the old man; and he clenched his fists and set his
teeth. "But I will!" he shouted again. "You stay here, and you belong to
us! And now, whosoever likes may come, and let him say what he pleases.
You, and no one but you, shall have my John!"

The mother ran to the old man and embraced him; and he, not being
accustomed to it, called out in surprise:

"What are you doing?"

"Giving you a kiss. You deserve it, for you are a better man than you
make yourself out to be."

The old man, who all this time had a pinch of snuff between his fingers
which he did not want to waste, took it quickly, and then said:

"Well, I don't object," but he added: "But now I shall dismiss you, for
I have much younger lips to kiss, which taste better. Come here, you
disguised parson."

"I'll come, but first you must call me by name."

"Well, what is your name?"

"You need not know that, for you can give me a name yourself--you know
what name I mean."

"You're a clever one! Well, if you like, come here, daughter-in-law.
Does that name suit you?"

In reply Amrei flung herself upon him.

"Am I not to be asked at all?" complained the mother with a radiant
face.

The old man had become quite saucy in his joy. He took Amrei by the
hand, and asked, in a satirical imitation of a clergyman's voice:

"Now I demand of you, honorable Cordula Catherine, called Dame
Landfried, will you take this--" and he whispered to the girl aside:

"What is your Christian name?"

"Amrei."

Then the Farmer continued in the same tone:

"Will you take this Amrei Josenhans, of Haldenbrunn to be your
daughter-in-law, and never let her have a word to say, as you do to your
husband, feed her badly, abuse her, oppress her, and as they say, bully
her generally?"

The old fellow seemed beside himself; some strange revulsion had taken
place within him. And while Amrei hung around the mother's neck, and
would not let her go, the old man struck his red cane on the table and
cried:

"Where's that good-for-nothing, John? Here's a fellow who sends his
bride for us to take care of, and goes wandering about the world
himself! Who ever heard of such a thing?"

Amrei then tore herself away, and said that the wagoner, or some one
else, must be sent at once to the mill to get John, who was waiting
there. The father declared that he ought to be left in suspense in the
mill for at least three hours; that should be his punishment for having
hidden in such a cowardly way behind a petticoat. And when he came
home, he should wear a woman's hood; in fact, he wouldn't have him in
the house, for when John came, he, the father, would have nothing of the
bride at all, and it made him angry already to think of the foolish way
in which they would carry on together.

Meanwhile the mother managed to slip away and send the quick-footed
wagoner to the mill.

And now the mother thought that Amrei ought to have some refreshment.
She wanted to cook an omelette immediately, but Amrei begged to be
allowed to light the first fire in the house that was to prepare
something for herself, and asked that she might cook something for her
parents too. They let her have her way, and the two old people went with
her into the kitchen. She knew how to manage it all so cleverly, seeing
at a glance where everything was, and hardly requiring to ask a single
question, that the old Farmer kept nodding to his wife, and said at
last:

"She can do housekeeping like singing at sight; she can read it all off
from the page, like the new schoolmaster."

The three stood by the fire, which was blazing merrily, when John came
in; and the fire was not blazing more merrily on the hearth than was
inward happiness blazing in the eyes of all three. The hearth and its
fire became a holy altar, surrounded by worshippers, who, however, only
laughed and teased one another.




CHAPTER XIX

SECRET TREASURES


Amrei felt so much at home in the house that, by the second day, she was
acting as if she had been brought up there from childhood. The old man
followed her around and looked on, while she knowingly took things in
hand and accomplished them calmly and steadily, without hurrying or
resting.

There are people who, when they go to get the least thing, a plate or a
jug, disturb the thoughts of everybody in the room, and seem to drag, so
to speak, the attention of all present about with them. Amrei, on the
contrary, knew how to manage and accomplish everything in such a way
that it was restful to watch her work, and people were consequently so
much the more grateful for everything she did for them. How often had
the Farmer complained about the fact that, when the salt was wanted,
some one always had to rise from the table to get it! But now Amrei
herself set the table, and she took care to put the salt-cellar on
immediately after the cloth was spread. When the Farmer praised Amrei
for this, his wife said with a smile:

"You talk as if you had not lived at all until now, and as if you had
always been obliged to eat your food without salt or seasoning!"

And then John told them that Amrei was also called the Salt Countess,
and he related the story of the King and his Daughter.

It was a happy family--in the parlor, in the yard, in the field. The
Farmer often said that his food for years had not tasted so good to him
as it did now; and he used to get Amrei to prepare things for him three
or four times a day, at quite irregular hours. And he made her sit with
him while he ate it.

The wife, with a feeling of proud satisfaction, took Amrei into the
dairy, and then into the store-rooms. In the latter place she opened a
large, gaily-painted chest, full of fine, bleached linen, and said:

"This is your outfit--nothing is lacking but shoes. I am very glad that
you kept the shoes you got with your wages, for I have a superstition
about that."

When Amrei questioned her about the way things had been done in the
house hitherto, she nodded approvingly. She did not, however, express
any approval in words, but the confidential tone in which she discussed
ordinary matters made it quite evident that she felt it. The very
supremity of satisfaction lay in her words. And when she began to
depute certain matters in the household management to Barefoot, she
said:

"Child, let me tell you something; if there is anything about our ways
of doing things in the house that doesn't please you, you needn't be
afraid to alter it so that it suits you. I am not one of those who think
that things must always remain just as they were originally arranged,
and that no changes should be made. You have a perfect right to do as
you think best, and I shall be glad to see a fresh hand at work. Only if
you'll listen to me--I advise you, for your own sake, to do it
gradually."

It was pleasant, indeed, to see old experience and young strength
joining hands, physically and mentally. Amrei declared with heartfelt
sincerity that she found everything capitally arranged, and that she
should be only too glad if one day, when she was old, the household was
in as good order as it was now.

"You look far ahead," said the old woman. "And that is a good thing; for
whosoever thinks of the future thinks of the past as well, and so you
will not forget me when I am gone."

Messengers had been sent out to announce the family event to the sons
and sons-in-law of the house, and to invite them to Zumarshofen the
following Sunday. After that the old man trotted about after Amrei more
than ever; he seemed to have something on his mind which he wanted to
say, but could not express.

There is a saying about buried treasures to the effect that a black
monster squats over them, and that on holy nights a blue flame appears
over the spot where the rich treasures lie buried; furthermore that
children, born on Sunday, can see this flame, and if they remain calm
and unmoved, they can secure the treasure. One would never have thought
that such a treasure was hidden in old Farmer Landfried, and that
squatting over it was black obstinacy and contempt for humankind. But
Amrei saw the little blue flame hovering above him, and knew how to
conduct herself in such a way as to release the treasure.

No one could tell how she produced such an effect upon him that he
manifestly strove to appear particularly good and benevolent in her
eyes--the mere fact that he took any interest in a poor girl at all was
in itself a wonder. This alone was clear to Amrei--that he did not want
his wife alone to appear as the just and amiable one, and himself as the
angry snarler, of whom people must be afraid. Perhaps the fact that
Amrei, even before she knew who he was, had accused him of not thinking
it worth while to appear good and kind before men, had opened his heart.
At all events he had so much to say now, every time he encountered her,
that it seemed as if he had been keeping all his thoughts in a
savings-box, which he was at last opening. And in it there were some
very singular old coins which had declined in value, also some large
medals which were no longer in circulation at all, and again there were
some quite fresh ones, of pure, unalloyed silver. He could not express
his thoughts as well as his wife had done on that day when she had
talked with John--his language was stiff in all its joints--but still he
managed to hit the point, and almost gave himself the appearance of
taking Amrei's part against his wife; nor was it at all amiss when he
said:

"Look you, the Dame is like the 'good hour' itself; but the good hour is
not a good day, a good week, or a good year. She is but a woman, and
with women it is always April weather; for a woman is only half a
person--that I maintain, and nobody can dissuade me from it!"

"You give us fine praise," said Amrei.

"Yes, it is true," said the Farmer, "I am talking to you. But as I was
saying, the Dame is a good soul, only she's too good. Consequently it
annoys her when one doesn't do as she says, because she means well; and
she thinks one doesn't know how good she really is, if one does not obey
her. She can't understand that often one does not obey her because what
she asks is inadvisable, however good her intentions may have been. And
remember this especially; don't ever do anything after her, that is,
just as she does it; do it your own way, the way you think is right--she
likes that much better. She does not like to have it appear that people
are subject to her orders--but you will find all that out yourself. And
if anything should happen, for heaven's sake don't put your husband
between two fires! There is nothing worse than when a husband stands
between his wife and mother, and the mother says: 'I no longer amount to
anything as far as my daughter-in-law is concerned; yes, even my own
children are untrue to me;' and the wife says 'Yes, now I see what kind
of a man you are--you let your wife be trampled on!' I advise you, if
anything should come up that you can't manage by yourself, to tell me
about it quietly, and I'll help you. But; as I say, don't put your
husband between two fires. He has been a bit spoiled by his mother, but
he'll grow more manly now. Just keep on pushing ahead, and think of me
as one of your family, and as your natural protector. For that is true;
on your mother's side I am very distantly related to you."

And now he tried to disentangle a strangely intricate genealogy; but be
was unable to find the right thread, and succeeded only in getting the
different relationships more and more mixed up, like a skein of yarn.
And at last he always concluded by saying:

"You may believe me on my word that we are related; for we _are_
related, although I can't quite figure out how."

And now the time before his end had really come, when he no longer gave
away merely bad grosschens; it did him good to donate at last a part of
his possessions having some real significance and value. For one evening
he called Amrei out behind the house and said to her:

"Look, my girl, you are good and sensible, but you don't know just how it
is with a man. My John has a good heart, but some day it may possibly
annoy him, the thought that you had absolutely nothing of your own. So
then, take this, but don't tell a soul anything about it, or from whom
you got it. Say that you worked hard and saved it up. There--take it!"

He handed her a stocking full of round thalers, and added:

"That was not to have been found until after I was dead; but it is
better so--he'll get it now and think it came from you. This whole
affair is out of the common way, so that it can easily be added that you
had a secret sum of money. But don't forget that there are also
thirty-two feather-thalers in it, which are worth a grosschen each more
than ordinary thalers. Take good care of it--put it in the chest where
your linen is, and always keep the key with you. And on Sunday, when the
entire family is assembled, pour it out on the table."

"I don't like to do that. I think John ought to do that, if it is
necessary to do it at all."

"It is necessary. But if you like, John may do it--but sh! put it out of
sight!--quickly! Hide it in your apron, for I hear John coming! I think
he is jealous." And the two parted in haste.

And that very evening the mother took Amrei up into the attic, and out
of a drawer drew forth a tolerably heavy bag. The cord which held it
together was tied and knotted in a remarkable manner. She said to Amrei:

"There--untie that!"

Amrei tried, but it was hard work.

"Wait! I'll get a pair of shears and we'll cut it open!"

"No," objected Amrei. "I don't like to do that! Just have a little
patience, mother, I'll undo it all right!"

The mother smiled; and Amrei, with great difficulty, but with a skilful
hand, finally got the cord untied. Then the old woman said:

"Good! That's fine! Now look at what's inside of it."

Amrei looked in and saw a quantity of gold and silver coins. Then the
mother went on to say:

"Look you, child, you have wrought a miracle upon the Farmer. Even now
I can't understand how he came to give in--but you have not entirely
converted him yet. My husband is always talking about it, saying what a
pity it is that you have nothing of your own. He can't get over it, and
keeps thinking that you must have a neat little sum tucked away
somewhere, and that you are deceiving us about it, merely to find out if
we are content to take you as you are. He won't let himself be talked
out of that notion, and so I hit upon an idea. God will not impute it to
us as a sin. Look--this is what I have saved during the thirty-six years
my husband and I have kept house together. There was no deception about
it, and some of it I inherited from my mother anyway. But now you take
it and say it is your property. It will make the Farmer very happy,
especially since he was clever enough to suspect it beforehand. Why do
you look at me in such a confused way? Believe me when I tell you that
you may do it--there is no wrong in it, for I have thought it over time
and again. Now, go and hide it, and don't say a word against it--not a
single word. Don't thank me or do anything--for it's the same to me
whether my child gets it now or later, and it will please my husband
while he's yet alive. And now, quick!--tie it up again!"

Early the next morning Amrei told John all about what his parents had
said to her, and what they had given her. And John cried out joyously:

"Lord in heaven, forgive me! I could have believed such a thing of my
mother, but of my father I should never have dreamt it! Why, you must be
a witch! And look you! We will do that--we won't tell either of them
about the other. And the best part of it is, that each wants to deceive
the other, whereas, in reality, both of them will be deceived! Yes, they
must both think that you really had some extra money! Hurrah! That will
be a merry jest for the betrothal party!"

But in the midst of all the joy in the house there were all sorts of
anxieties too!




CHAPTER XX

IN THE FAMILY CIRCLE


It is not morality that rules the world, but a hardened form of it
called "custom." As the world is now disposed, it would rather forgive
an offense against morality than an offense against custom. Happy are
those times and countries in which morality and custom are still one.
Every dispute that arises, on a small scale as well as on a large one,
in general as well as in particular, hinges on the effort to reconcile
the contradiction between these two; and to melt the hardened form of
custom back into the true ore of morality, and stamp the coin anew
according to its value.

Even here, in this little story dealing with people who live apart from
the great tumult of the world, the reflection of this truth is seen.

The mother, who was secretly the most rejoiced over the happy
realization of her hopes, was yet full of peculiar anxiety concerning
the opinion of the world.

"After all," she said, complainingly, to Amrei, "you did a thoughtless
thing to come into the house in the way you did, so that we cannot go
and fetch you to the wedding. It was not good, not customary. If I could
only send you away for a short time, or else John, so that it would all
be more according to rule."

And to John she said plaintively:

"I hear already the talk there'll be if you marry in such a hurry.
People will say: 'Twice asked, the third time persuaded--that's the way
worthless people do it!'"

But she allowed herself to be pacified by both of them, and smiled when
John said:

"Mother, you have studied up everything, like a clergyman. Then tell me,
why should decent people refrain from doing something, simply because
indecent people use it as a cloak? Can any one say anything bad about
me?"

"No,--you have been a good lad all your life."

"Well, then let them have a little confidence in me now, and believe
that a thing may be good, even if it does not look so at first sight. I
have a right to ask that much of them. The way Amrei and I came together
was out of the usual order, to be sure, and the affair has gone on in
its own way from the very beginning. But it wasn't a bad way. Why, it's
like a miracle, if we look at it rightly. And what is it to us if people
refuse to believe in miracles nowadays, and prefer to find all sorts of
badness in these things? One must have courage and not ask the world's
opinion in everything. The clergyman at Hirlingen once said: 'If a
prophet were to rise today, he would first have to pass the government
examination and show that what he wanted was in the regular order.' Now,
mother, when one knows for oneself that something is right, then it is
best to go forward in a straight line and push aside, right and left,
whatever stands in one's way. Let people stare and wonder for a
while--they will think better of it in time."

The mother very likely felt that a thing might be accepted as a miracle
if it came in the form of a sudden, happy event, but that even the most
unusual things later on must gradually conform to the laws of tradition
and of strong, established custom. The wedding might appear as a
miracle, but the marriage, which involved a continuance, would not. She
therefore said:

"With all these people, whom you now look at with proud indifference,
because you know that you are doing right--with all these people you'll
have to live, and you'll expect them, not to look at you askance, but to
give you due respect. Now if they are to do that, you must give and
allow them what they are accustomed to demand. You cannot force them to
make an exception in your case, and you can't run after each one
separately and say: 'If you knew how it all came about, you would say
that I was quite right in doing it.'"

But John rejoined:

"You shall see that nobody will have anything to say against my Amrei,
when he or she has known her a single hour!"

And he resorted to a good way, not only of pacifying his mother, but
also of causing her to rejoice in her innermost soul. He reported to her
how all the warnings she had given him, and all the ways of testing a
girl she had enumerated, had found exact correspondence in Amrei, as if
she had been made to order. And she could not help laughing, when he
concluded:

"You must have had the last in your head upon which the shoes up above
are made; for they fit her who is to run about in them as if they were
made for her." The mother let herself be quieted.

On the Saturday morning previous to the family gathering, Damie made his
appearance; but he was immediately dispatched back to Haldenbrunn to
procure all the necessary papers from the magistrate in the town-hall.

The first Sunday was an anxious day at Farmer Landfried's. The old
people had accepted Amrei, but how would it be with the rest of the
family? It is no easy matter to enter a large family of that kind unless
the way is paved with horses and wagons, and all sorts of furniture and
money, and a number of relatives.

Many wagons arrived that Sunday at Farmer Landfried's from the uplands
and lowlands. There came driving up brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law,
and all their relations.

"John has a wife, and he brought her straight home without her parents,
without a clergyman, and without the authorities having had a word to
say in the matter. She must be a beauty that he found behind a hedge
somewhere!"

This is what all of them were saying.

The horses on the wagons also suffered for what had happened at Farmer
Landfried's. They received many a lash, and when they kicked, they
suffered all the more for it; for whoever was driving whipped them until
his arm was tired. This caused many a wrangle with the wives, who sat
beside the drivers and protested and scolded about such a reckless,
cruel way of driving.

A little fortress of carriages stood in Farmer Landfried's courtyard,
and in the house the entire large family was assembled. There they sat
together in high water-boots, or in clouted laced-boots, and with
three-cornered hats, some worn with the corner, others with the
broadside forward. The women whispered among themselves, and then made
signs to their husbands, or else said to them quietly: "Just let us
alone--we will drive the strange bird out all right." And a bitter,
jeering laugh arose when it was rumored here and there, that Amrei had
been a goose-girl.

At last Amrei entered; but she could not offer, her hand to anybody. For
she was carrying a large bottle of red wine under her arm, and so many
glasses, besides two plates of cake, that it seemed as if she had seven
hands. Every finger-joint appeared to be a hand; but she put everything
so gently and noiselessly on the table, on which her mother-in-law had
spread a white cloth, that everybody looked at her in wonder. Then,
silently and without any signs of trepidation, she filled all the
glasses, and said:

"My parents have given me authority to bid you a hearty welcome! Now
drink!"

"We are not used to it in the morning," said a heavy man, with an
uncommonly large nose; and he spread himself out in his chair. This was
George, John's oldest brother.

"We drink only goose-wine (water)," said one of the women; and a
scarcely-suppressed laugh went around the room.

Amrei felt the taunt, but kept her temper; and John's sister was the
first to take the glass and drink to her. She first clinked her glass
against John's with a "May God bless you!" She only half responded to
Amrei, who also held out her glass. Now, the other women considered it
impolite, even sinful,--for, at the first draught, the so-called
"John's-draught," it is looked upon as sinful to hold back--not to
respond; and the men also let themselves be persuaded, so that for a
time nothing was heard but the clinking and putting down of glasses.

"Father is right," old Dame Landfried at last said to her daughter.
"Amrei looks as if she were your sister, but she resembles still more
Elizabeth, who died."

"Yes; none of you have lost by it. If Elizabeth had lived, the property
would have been smaller by one share anyway," observed the father. And
the mother added:

"But now she has been given back to us again."

The old man had hit the spot where, as a matter of fact, all of them
were sore, although they tried to persuade themselves, and each other,
that they were prejudiced against Amrei because she had come among them
without any relatives of her own. And while Amrei was talking to John's
sister, the old farmer said to his son in a low voice:

"One would never imagine, to look at her, what she has. Just think!--she
has a bag stuffed full of crown thalers! But you must not say anything
to any one about it."

This injunction was so well obeyed, that within a few minutes every
person in the room knew about the bag of thalers, with the exception of
John's sister, who afterward took great credit to herself for having
been so friendly to Amrei, although she thought that Amrei had not a
farthing of her own.

Sure enough! John had gone out, and he was now entering again with a
large bag, on which was written the name "Josenhans of Haldenbrunn;" and
when he poured out the rich contents, which rolled rattling and clinking
over the table, all were dumbfounded. But the most astonished of all
were the father and mother.

So Amrei had really had a secret treasure! For there was much more here
than either one had given her. Amrei did not dare to look up, and every
one praised her for her unexampled humility. And now she succeeded in
winning them all over to her side; and when the numerous members of the
family took their leave in the evening, each one said to her in secret:

"Look you; it was not I who was against you because you had nothing--it
was so-and-so, who was always opposing you. I say now, as I said and
thought before, that even if you had had nothing but the clothes you
wore, you were cut out for our family; and I could not have wished for a
better wife for John, or a better daughter-in-law for the old people."

It was easy to say that now, for they all thought that Amrei had brought
with her a considerable fortune in cash.

In Allgau they talked for years of the wonderful way in which young
Farmer Landfried had brought home his wife, and told how finely he and
his wife had danced together at their wedding, and especially did they
praise a waltz called "Silverstep," the music for which they got from
the lowlands.

And Damie?--he is one of the most noted shepherds in Allgau, and has,
moreover, a lofty name, for he is known in the country as "Vulture
Damie." Why? Because Damie has destroyed the nests of two dangerous
vultures, and thus avenged himself on them for twice having stolen young
lambs from him. If it were the custom to dub men knights nowadays, he
would be called "Damian of Vulturescraig." Moreover, the male side of
the Josenhanses of Vulturescraig will die with him, for he is still a
bachelor. But he is a good uncle--better than the one in America. When
the cattle are brought in at the end of the summer, he has many stories
to tell his sister's children, on winter nights, about life in America,
about Coaly Matthew in Mossbrook Wood, and about shepherds' adventures
in the mountains of Allgau. In particular, he knows a number of funny
stories to tell about a cow which he calls his "herd-cow," and which
wears a deep-sounding bell.

And Damie said once to his sister:

"Dame"--for that is what he always calls her--"Dame, your oldest boy
takes after you, and uses just such words as you used to. What do you
think?--the boy said to me today: 'Uncle, your herd-cow is your
heart-cow too, isn't she?' Yes, the boy is just on your pattern."

Farmer John wanted to have his first little daughter christened
"Barefoot," but it is no longer permissible to create names out of
incidents in daily life. The name was not accepted in the church
register, so that John had the child named "Barbara." But, on his own
authority, he has changed that name to "Barefoot."

       *       *       *       *       *




JEREMIAS GOTTHELF

       *       *       *       *       *

ULI, THE FARMHAND

TRANSLATIONS AND SYNOPSES

BY BAYARD QUINCY MORGAN, PH.D.

Instructor in German, University of Wisconsin



CHAPTER I

A MASTER AWAKES; A SERVANT IS AROUSED


A dark night lay upon the earth; still darker was the place where a
subdued voice repeatedly called, "Johannes." It was a tiny chamber in a
large farmhouse; the voice came from the great bed which almost filled
the further end of the room. In it lay a farmer and his wife, and to him
the latter cried "Johannes" until he presently began to grumble and
finally to ask, "What do you want? What is it?"

"You'll have to get up and fodder the stock. It's after half-past four,
and Uli didn't get home till after two and fell downstairs at that when
he tried to get into his room. I should think you'd have waked up, he
made such a noise. He was drunk, and now he won't want to get up; and
anyhow I'd rather he wouldn't take a lantern into the stable while he's
tipsy."

"Servants are a trial nowadays," said the farmer, striking a light and
dressing. "You can hardly get 'em or pay 'em enough, and then you're
supposed to do everything yourself and never say a word about anything.
You're not master in your own house any more, and you can't do enough of
your own errands to keep from quarrels and from being run down."

"But you can't let this go on," said his wife; "it's happening too
often. Only last week he went off on two sprees; you know he drew his
pay before Ash Wednesday. I'm not thinking of you alone, but also of
Uli. If nothing's said to him he'll think he's got a right to go on so,
and will keep on worse and worse, and then we'll have to take it on our
consciences; for masters are masters after all, and let folks say what
they will about the new fashion, that it's nobody's business what the
servants do out of working hours, we're masters in our own house just
the same, and we're responsible to God and men for what we allow in our
house and what we overlook in our servants. Then too I'm thinking of the
children. You must take him into the sitting-room after breakfast, and
read him the riot act."

You must know that there prevails on many farms, especially those which
belong to the real farmer aristocracy--i.e., those which have for a long
time been handed, down in the same family, so that family customs have
been established and family respectability is cherished--the very
pleasant custom of causing absolutely no quarrel, no violent scene,
which could attract the neighbors' attention in any way. In proud calm
the house stands amid the green trees; with calm, grave demeanor its
indwellers move about and in it, and over the tree-tops sounds at most
the neighing of the horses, never the voices of men. There is little
noisy rebuke. Man and wife never rebuke each other in public; and
mistakes of the servants they often ignore, or make, as it were in
passing, a remark, let fall merely a word or a hint, which reaches only
the ear for which it is intended. When something unusual occurs or the
measure is full, they call the sinner into the sitting-room as
unostentatiously as possible, or seek him out while he is working alone,
and "read him the riot act," as the saying is; and for this the master
has usually prepared himself carefully. He performs this duty in perfect
calm, quite like a father, keeps nothing from the sinner, not even the
bitterest truth, but gives him a just hearing too, and puts before him
the consequences of his misdoings with respect to his future destiny.

[Illustration: JEREMIAS GOTTHELF]

And when the master is done he is content, and the affair is settled to
this extent, that neither the rebuked one nor his fellows can detect the
least thing in the conduct of the master--no bitterness, nor vehemence,
nor anything else. These reprimands are mostly of good effect by virtue
of the prevailing fatherly tone, the calmness of their delivery, and
their considerately chosen setting. Of the self-control and calm
serenity in such houses one can scarcely form a conception.

When the master was almost through in the stable Uli came along, but in
silence; they spoke no word to each other. When the voice from the
kitchen door called them to breakfast the master went at once to the
well-trough and washed his hands, but Uli stood long undecided. Perhaps
he would not have come to breakfast at all if the mistress herself had
not called him again. He was ashamed to show his face, which was black
and blue and bloody. He did not know that it is better to be ashamed of
a thing before it is done, than afterward. But this he was to learn.

At the table no remark was passed, no question which might have
concerned him; and the two maids did not even venture to show mocking
faces, for the master and mistress wore serious ones. But when they had
eaten and the maids were carrying out the dishes, and Uli, who had
finished last, raised his elbows from the table and put his cap on his
head again, showing that he had prayed and was going out, the master
said, "A word with you," went into the sitting-room and shut the door
behind them. The master sat down at the further end near the little
table; Uli stood still by the door and assumed a sheepish expression
which could as easily be transformed into defiance as into penitence. He
was a tall, handsome lad, not yet twenty years old, powerful in build,
but with something in his face that did not indicate innocence and
moderation, and that by next year could make him look ten years older.

"Listen, Uli," the master began, "things can't go on this way; you're
getting too wild to suit me. You go on night revels and sprees too
often. I won't trust my horses and cows to a man whose head is full of
brandy or wine, and I can't send him into the stable with a lantern,
especially when he smokes as you do. I've seen too many houses burned up
by such carelessness. I don't know what you're thinking of and what you
think is going to come of all this."

He hadn't burned up anything yet, Uli answered; he had always done his
work, no one had needed to do it for him, and nobody had paid for what
he drank; it was nobody's business what he spent on drink, it was his
own money.

"But it's my servant," answered the master, "that's drinking up his
money. When you carry on it comes back on me, and the people say that
you're the Bottom-Farmer's man and that they can't imagine what he's
thinking of to let you carry on so and to have such a servant as you.
You haven't burned up any house yet, but think, Uli, wouldn't once be
too much, and would you ever have a quiet moment again if you thought
you had burned up my house, and if we and the children couldn't get out
and were burned to death? And how about your work? I'd rather have you
lie abed all day long. Why, you fall asleep under the cows you're
milking, and you don't see, hear, or smell anything, and stumble around
the house as if your liver was out of whack. It's terrible to watch
you."

He wouldn't take this, said Uli, and if his work wasn't good enough for
him he'd leave. But it was always so nowadays, you couldn't satisfy a
master any more, even if working all the time; one was worse than the
other. As for pay, they wanted to give less and less, and the food got
worse every day. After awhile one would have to gather fleas, beetles,
and grasshoppers if one wanted to have meat and fat with his vegetables.

"Listen, Uli," said the master, "you're in a bad temper still, and I
oughtn't to have said anything to you. But I'm sorry for you, for you've
been a fine lad and used to be able to work. For awhile I thought you'd
turn out well, and I was glad. But since you began this idling and
night-running, you've become a different fellow. You don't care about
anything any more; you're a sorehead, and when I say the least word to
you either sauce me or sulk for a week. Go now, think it over, and if
you're not willing to change, then in God's name leave me; I don't want
you any longer. Give me your answer in a week."

He'd soon have his mind made up, it wouldn't take a week, Uli growled as
he went out; but the master pretended not to hear.

When the master came out, his wife asked him as usual, "What did you say
to him, and what did he say?"

"I couldn't do anything with him," answered the master. "Uli is still in
a bad temper, for he hasn't slept off his spree yet; it would have been
better to talk to him tomorrow or in the evening, after the natural
seediness of 'the day after' had softened him up a little. Now I've
given him time to think it over, and shall wait and see what comes of
it."

Uli went out in bitter anger, as if the greatest injustice had been done
him. He flung the tools around as though everything was to go to smash
in the one day, and he bawled at the cattle until the master ached in
every bone. But the latter forced himself to be calm, merely saying
once, "Easy, easy!" With the other servants Uli had no dealings, but
scowled at them too. As the master had not reprimanded him before the
others, he did not care to inform them of his disgrace, and because he
did not make common cause with them he considered that they were on the
master's side and his enemies--a state of mind quite in accord with that
deeply truthful saying: "He that is not for me is against me." So there
was no one to put notions into his head, and he had no opportunity to
swear that the devil or what-not might take him if he stayed here an
hour after his time was up.

Little by little the wine and other spirits departed from him, and more
and more sluggish grew his limbs; the previous tension yielded to an
intolerable exhaustion, which affected not only body but mind. And as
every act of the exhausted body is hard and painful to perform, so every
past and potential act seems to the exhausted spirit, which would fain
weep over what it laughed at before; what formerly caused pleasure and
joy now brings only grief and sorrow; the things but yesterday eagerly
grasped now bring a craze that would tear the hair from its head, aye,
even the whole head from its body. When this mood envelops the soul it
is irresistible, and over all a man's thought and ideas it casts its
sickly gleam.

While Uli, as long as the effect of the wine was upon him, had been
angry with the master for his rebuke, now that its force was spent he
became angry at himself for his debauch. He recalled the twenty-three
farthings which he had gone through in one evening, and which would now
take almost a fortnight's work to earn again. He was angry at the work
which he would have to do for this purpose, at the wine which he had
drunk, at the tavern-keeper who had furnished it, and so on. He lost all
sense, forgot everything, did everything wrong. He was uncomfortable,
discontented with himself, hence also with all others, with the whole
world; he had good words for none, and nothing suited him. He imagined
that the mistress was intentionally cooking poor meals and preparing
everything he didn't like; that the master was tormenting him with
needless work; that the horses were all bad-tempered and that the cows
purposely did everything they could to bother him--the stupidest cows
that ever grazed on God's earth.

The farmer and his wife let the lad alone; it seemed as if they paid no
heed to him. But it was not so. The mistress had once or twice remarked
to her husband how wildly Uli was carrying on--she had never known him
to be in such a state before. Had her husband spoken too sharply to him?
But the farmer did not think so; Uli wasn't angry at him alone but at
the whole world, he said--probably chiefly angry at himself and was
letting it out on others.

On Sunday he would talk with him again. Things couldn't go on this way
any longer; Uli would have to mend his ways or go. But he mustn't be too
harsh, said the mistress. After all, Uli wasn't the worst in the world;
they knew what he was, but they didn't know what they might get.




CHAPTER II

A QUIET SUNDAY IN A FINE FARMHOUSE


[This describes in detail the Sunday activities on the
farm--churchgoing, visits from relatives, an afternoon walk, inspection
of the crops and the cattle, a coffee party.]




CHAPTER III

A NOCTURNAL ADMONITION


After they had hung up the lantern out in the stable and bedded the
horses, the master himself made a bed for the cow, which tramped
restlessly back and forth and could not lie down for uneasiness, and
then remarked that it might be an hour or two yet, and they would go out
and sit on the bench and smoke a pipe; the cow would give warning when
the time came.

It was a mild night, half spring, half summer. Few stars twinkled in the
blue ocean above; a ringing shout, a distant wagon broke in at times
upon the stillness of the night.

"Have you made up your mind now, Uli?" asked the master, when they were
sitting on the bench before the stable.

Uli answered that he was still rather undecided, but his tone was no
longer angry. He wouldn't take everything, but he shouldn't mind
staying.

He had already adopted the generally accepted maxim, never to show
eagerness lest the opponent draw an advantage from it. Hence the
remarkable calm and cold-bloodedness in farmers, which diplomats should
admire. But in its full extent and application it is a vicious policy,
which causes unspeakable evil, estranges countless people, makes them
appear enemies to one another, generates coldness where generous zeal
should be kindled, and results in an indifference which causes an
involuntary goose-flesh to scamper up the back of every friend of
goodness.

The master did not take the reply amiss, but said that he felt the same
way. He had nothing against Uli; but things would have to change. He
wanted to know who was in the wrong, and whether he couldn't say a word
in his own house any more without getting cross words all the week and
seeing a face sour enough to poison all America.

He couldn't help it, said Uli. To look cross was his style of
friendliness, and if his face hadn't looked the same as usual it wasn't
on his master's account, for he had no special complaint against him or
anybody. But he was only a poor servant after all, and had no right to a
home or any fun; he was on earth only to be unhappy, and when ever he
tried to forget his misery and have a good time everybody got after him
and tried to put him down. Whoever could shove him into misfortune, did
so. Who could be expected to look sweet all the time?

He ought to see that he didn't want to shove him into misfortune--quite
the contrary, said the master. If any one was doing that it was himself.
When a lad went with bad girls he was the cause of his own misfortune,
and no one else. "No, Uli," continued the master, "you must give up your
loose living; you make yourself unhappy, and I won't have such vexation
as you've caused me this week."

He hadn't done anything bad, Uli rejoined.

"Ho, ho," said the master; "I wonder whether getting full is something
good."

Oh, there were much worse than he, said Uli, and there were lots of
farmers that he couldn't hold a candle to.

He couldn't deny it, said the master, but a bad man didn't make the
others good, and even if many a farmer was a drunkard or even a
scoundrel, that didn't make Uli any better if he was a loafer and other
things besides.

Well, a man surely ought to be allowed to have some fun, said Uli;
who'd want to live if he couldn't have any fun any more?

"But Uli, is it any fun if you don't want to see anybody for a week
afterward, if you don't feel happy anywhere? Is it any fun if it can
make you miserable and unhappy for the rest of your life? Such fun is
the devil's bait. Of course you can have your fun; every man has a right
to it, but in good and right ways. You can tell whether a man is good or
bad by his enjoyment of good or bad things."

"Well, it's easy for you to crow," said Uli, "you've got the finest farm
for miles around, your stables are full of good stock, you granaries
full; you have a good wife--one of the best, and fine children; you can
enjoy yourself, for you have things to enjoy; if I had 'em, I'd never
think of sprees and wild living. But what have I got? I'm a poor lad,
haven't a soul in the world that wishes me well; my father's dead, my
mother too, and my sisters are all looking out for themselves.
Misfortune's my lot in this world; if I get sick, nobody wants me, and
if I die they'll bury me like a dog, and not a soul will cry over me.
Oh, why don't they kill the like of me when we come into the world!" And
with that, big strong Uli began to cry bitterly.

"Now, now, Uli," said the master, "you're not so badly off, if you'd
only think so. Give up your wild life and you can be a man yet. Many a
man has started with as little as you, and got house and farm and full
stables."

Yes, said Uli, such things didn't happen any more, and then a man had to
have more luck for that than he had.

"That's stupid talk," said the master; "how can a man talk of luck when
he throws away and squanders all he gets his hands on? I never saw a
coin yet that wasn't willing to leave the hand that spent it. But your
mistake is just this--that you don't believe you could become a man. You
think you're poor and will stay poor and are worth nothing, and so you
stay poor. If you thought something different, things would go better.
For everything still depends on what a man believes."

"But for goodness gracious sake, master," said Uli, "how should I get
rich? Think how little my pay is, and how many clothes I need; and I
have debts to boot. What's the use of saving? And can't I have any fun?"

"But for goodness gracious sake," echoed the master, "what are you
coming to if you've got debts now, while you're strong and well and
nobody to care for? You'll be a vagabond, and then nobody will want you
any more; you'll earn less and less and need more and more. No, Uli,
think it over a little; this can't go on. There's still time, and I tell
you honestly it would be a pity."

"It's no use; what's the good of drudging and giving up all my fun? I
shan't get anywhere; a poor lad like me can never be anything else,"
wailed Uli.

"See what the cow's doing," said the master. And when Uli came back with
the reply that the calf was not coming just yet, the master said, "I
shall remember all my life how our pastor explained serving in our
religious teaching, and how he made it so clear that you had to believe
him; and many a man has grown happy by doing so. He said that all men
got from God two great funds to put out at interest--namely, powers and
time. By good use of these we must win temporal and eternal life. Now,
many a man has nothing to exercise his powers on, so as to use his time
serviceably and profitably; so he lends his powers and his time to some
one who has too much work, but too little time and powers, in return for
a definite pay; that is called serving. But it was an unfortunate thing,
he said, that most servants regarded this serving as a misfortune and
their employers as their enemies or at least their oppressors; that they
regarded it as an advantage to do as little as possible for them, to be
able to waste as much time as possible in chattering, running, and
sleeping; that they became unfaithful, for they withheld in this way
from their masters what they had lent and sold to them--time. But as
every disloyalty punished itself, so this also caused very direful
consequences; for betrayal of the master was betrayal of oneself. Every
action tended imperceptibly to form a habit which we could never get rid
of. When a maid-servant or a man-servant had for years done as little as
possible, worked as slowly as possible, always grumbled at each new
task, and either run away, heedless of the outcome, or dawdled over it
so that the very grass grew under their feet, had taken no pains with
anything, spoiled as much as possible, never been careful but always
indifferent to everything--this soon formed a habit, and after a while
it couldn't be shaken off. Such a habit would be carried along into each
employment, and if in time independence came and marriage, then who had
to bear these habits--laziness, sloth, insubordination, discontent? The
man himself had to bear them and all their consequences, distress and
calamity, until death, through death, and before God's judgment seat. He
told us to look and see how many thousands were a burden to their
fellows and an offense to God, dragging themselves around as repulsive
creatures, visible witnesses to the thoughtful, how unfaithfulness
punishes itself."

"But as a man formed a habit by his acts, so also he made a name for
himself among others. For this name, for his reputation or esteem among
men, every man worked from childhood to the grave; every little act,
yes, every single word, contributed to this name. This name opens or
closes hearts to us, makes us worthy or unworthy, desired or rejected.
However humble a man, he has his name, and his fellows judge his value
to them by it. So every man-servant and maid-servant involuntarily
creates a name, and the amount of their wages is determined by it; it
opens a way to them or closes it. Then it's no use for a man to make
long speeches and complain about former employers; that won't give him a
good name, for his actions have already given him a bad one. His
reputation would be known for miles around, one scarcely knew how. This
name was a wonderful thing, and yet people gave much too little thought
to it, especially those with whom it was only second in importance to
their habits of mind; with these two things they wished to gain a third,
a good living in the world, wealth; and a fourth--Heaven and its
treasures. What a wretched wight he was, then, who had bad habits and a
bad name, and who was losing Heaven and earth!

"And so, the pastor continued, every man who went into service ought to
look on it not as slavery, nor the master as his enemy; but as
schooling, and the master as a blessing from God; for what should the
poor do--i.e., those who had but time and powers (and that was much
after all), if no one would give them work and pay. They should regard
their time of service as an opportunity to accustom themselves to work
and industry and make a good name for themselves among men. According as
they were true to the master they were true to themselves, and as the
master profited by them they profited themselves. They should never
think that only the master gained advantage from their industry; they
gained at least as much from it. Then, even if they came to a bad
master, they should by no means plan to punish him by bad behavior; they
would only injure themselves thereby, inwardly and outwardly. Now when a
servant worked better and better, was increasingly faithful and capable,
that was his own possession which nobody could take from him, and in
addition he had his good name. People would like him and intrust much to
him, and the world would be open to him. Let him undertake what he
would, he would find good people to help him because his good name was
the best security. We should stop and think what servants men
commended--the faithful or the unfaithful; and which among them attained
property and respect.

"Then the pastor said a third thing, and that touches you especially. He
said that men wanted to have pleasure and ought to have it, especially
in their youth. Now when a servant hated his service and found work
disagreeable, he would desire some special pleasures and so would begin
to idle, to run wild, to take part in bad affairs, and finally would
take delight in these things and meditate upon them day and night. But
if maid or man had seen the light, realized that they might come to
something, and had faith in themselves, then they would love their work,
would take pleasure in learning something, in doing something well;
pleasure in success at something, in the growth of what they had
planted, what they had fed. They would never say, 'What do I care about
this? What business is that of mine? I get nothing out of it.' No, they
would take genuine pleasure in doing something unusual, undertaking
something hard; thus their powers would best grow, thus they would make
the best name for themselves. So they would take delight in their
master's business, in his horses, cows, corn, grass, as if they were
their own. 'Of that in which a man delights doth he think; where the
treasure is, there is the heart also,' said the pastor. Now if the
servant has his mind on his service, if he is filled with the desire to
become a thoroughly capable man in the eyes of God and men, then the
devil has little power over him, cannot suggest evil things to him,
wicked thoughts for him to think continually, so that he hasn't his mind
on his work but is drawn from one vice to another and is ruined in soul
and body. Those were the pastor's words," concluded the master; "it
seems as if it was today that he spoke them to us, and I have seen a
hundred times over that he was right. I thought I'd tell it to you; it
just fits your case. And if you'd only think so, you could be one of the
finest lads in the world and have just the kind of life you want."




CHAPTER IV

HOW THE EARS OF A SERVANT ARE OPENED TO A GOOD MASTER


Uli's answer was cut off by the cow, which proclaimed her pangs more
clearly: now there was work to do, and the conversation could not be
continued. All went well, and finally there was a handsome calf,
coal-black with a white star, such as neither had ever seen; it was
decided to raise it. Uli was twice as active and attentive as usual, and
the little calf he treated quite gently, almost tenderly, and regarded
it with real affection.

When they were done with the cow and she had had her onion soup, the
morning was already dawning, and no time was left to continue their
conversation.

The ensuing work-days engrossed them with various labors and the master
was frequently absent on business in the neighborhood, so that they had
no further talk together. But it seemed to be assumed by both that Uli
was to remain, and when the master came home his wife could not praise
Uli enough, saying how well he had performed his duty and that she had
not had to give him any orders; he had thought of everything himself,
and when she had thought of it it had already been done. This naturally
pleased the master very much and caused him to speak with increasing
kindness to Uli and to show more and more confidence in him. Nothing is
more vexatious for a master than to come home in the evening tired or
sleepy and find everything at sixes and sevens and his wife full of
complaints; to see only half the work done that should have been
accomplished, much of it botched and ruined, so that it had better have
been let alone; and then into the bargain to hear his wife complain half
the night how the servants had been unruly, had given impudent answers,
and done just what they pleased, and how she hated to have it so--and if
he ever went away again she would run off too. It is terrible for a man
who has to go away (and the necessity arises occasionally) if the heavy
sighs begin on the homeward road, as soon as he can see his house. What
has happened today, he thinks--what shall I see and hear? And so he
scarcely wants to go home at all; and whereas he would like to return
with love and joy, he has to march with thunder and lightning into his
rebellious realm.

In Uli something new had awakened and was filling his whole frame,
without his rightly knowing it as yet. As time went on he had to think
more and more of the master's words, and more and more he began to
believe that the master was right. It was grateful to him to think that
he was not created to remain a poor despised lad, but might yet become a
man. He saw that wild ways would not bring him to that, and that the
more he persisted in them the more ground he would lose. He was
strangely affected by what the master had said about habits, and about
the good name that one could get in addition to his pay, and so keep on
earning more and more the more faithfully he worked; and how one could
not look better to his own interest than by being very faithful in the
service of his master.

He found himself less and less ready to deny that it was so. More and
more examples kept occurring to him of bad servants who had become
unhappy and remained poor, and on the other hand he remembered how he
had heard others praised by their old employers, who told how they had
had a good man or maid, and how these had done well and were now Well
off.

Only one thing he could not understand--how he, Uli, should ever come to
money, to wealth; that seemed absolutely impossible to him. His pay was
thirty crowns in cash, that is, seventy-five francs; also two shirts and
a pair of shoes. Now he still had debts of almost four crowns and had
already drawn much pay. Heretofore he had never been able to keep within
his income; and now he was to pay debts and save, and that seemed
impossible to him, for in the natural course of things he was prepared
to see his debts increase each year. Of the thirty crowns he needed at
least ten for clothes, and even then he could not dress very elegantly;
for stockings, shoes, shirts, of which he had only three good and four
poor ones, washing, etc., at least eight crowns would go; a packet of
tobacco every week (and he generally used more) made two crowns more;
that left ten crowns. Now there were fifty Saturday nights, fifty Sunday
afternoons, six of which were dance-Sundays at that; nobody knew how
many market-days; then there was a review, perhaps even a quartering of
soldiers, not counting all the chance occasions for a lark, such as
weddings, shooting, bowling, the newly fashionable masquerades, and
evening parties, the most dangerous of all evil customs. Independence
Day, which degenerates into a perfect orgy of debauchery, was not then
in vogue. Now if he figured only two pence a week for brandy or wine,
that made four crowns again. If he skipped three dance-Sundays, still he
needed at least a crown if he was to pay the fiddler, have a girl, and,
as was customary, go home full; and often he needed a thirty-fiver for
each of the other three Sundays. Now for the market-days, reviews, and
other sprees he had only three crowns left. With this, he thought, it
was really humanly impossible to get along; two markets and the review
alone would use up more than that; so he had nothing at all for the
rest. He figured it over and over, tried to cut down on clothes, on
other expenses; but it couldn't be done. He had to be clothed and have
washing done; nor could he run barefoot. And so, let him figure as he
would, he always came to the sad result that, instead of putting by, he
would be falling behind.

One day soon after this calculation master and man were hauling stones
for a new stove. On the homeward way they stopped at an inn, for they
had a long and hilly road. Since the master was not so niggardly as to
order the poorest wine when the servant was with him, and only a
halfpence worth of bread for the two, Uli became talkative as they
proceeded. "Listen, master," said Uli, "I have been thinking that the
pastor who gave you your instruction wasn't altogether a fool; but he
didn't know anything about what pay a farmer lad gets and what he needs;
I suppose he thought it was about as much as a vicar's pay. But you
ought to know better, and that saving and getting rich are no go. I've
spent many a day in figuring, till I was like to burst the top of my
head off; but I always got the same result: nothing comes of nothing,
and zero from zero is zero."

"Why, how did you figure?" asked the master.

Uli went through the whole account again for him, and when he was done
he asked the master mockingly, "Now, what do you say to that? Isn't it
so?"

The master said, "By your account, to be sure; but there's a very
different way of reckoning, my lad. Here now, I'll figure it up for you
my way; I wonder what you'll say to it."

"I won't change much what you put down for clothes. It's possible that
if you want to keep yourself in good condition, and in particular to
have shirts that will save washing, and to look as a self-respecting lad
likes to look on Sundays and work-days, you'll need even more at first.
But for tobacco you've put down two crowns, and that's too much. A man
that has to go into the stable and on the barn-floor ought not to smoke
all day, not till after working hours. You don't need to smoke to offset
your hunger on my place, and if you could get out of the habit
altogether it would help you a lot. When a man doesn't smoke he always
increases his wages.

"The other ten crowns that you put down for amusements of all kinds I'll
strike out, every one. Yes, open your mouth and look at me like a stork
at a new roof. If you want to cure yourself and come to something,
you've got to make some decent resolution at the outset--a resolution
not to squander a single penny of your pay in any way. If you resolve
simply to go gallivanting a little less often, to spend a little less
than before, that's just throwing your money to the winds. Once in the
tavern, you're no longer master of yourself; the old companionship, the
old habit will carry you along, and you'll spend two or three weeks' pay
again. Then the after-thirst will come and you'll have to improve other
evenings, and more and more you'll lose all belief that you could ever
help yourself up, you'll become slacker every day, and you'll despair of
yourself more and more. Besides, it's not so dreadful as the face you
makeup. See how many people never take a glass the year round, or go
into a tavern. It's not only poor day-laborers, who have all they can do
to keep off the parish, but some of them are well-to-do, even rich
people, who've made it a habit never to spend anything uselessly, and
they are not only contented but can much less understand how a
reasonable man can enjoy idling than you are willing to understand me
when I say a man can live without idling."

"I walked home once with a little man from the Langental market. He was
surprised to find me going home so early; usually he had to go home
alone, he said. I answered that I hadn't had anything more to do, and
that I didn't care to sit in the tavern till evening; that it cost money
and time, and a man didn't know when and how he would finally get home.
He felt the same way, he said. He had begun with nothing and barely got
along. For a long time he had supported father and mother alone, but now
he had his home and farm paid for and every year two cows to sell, and
not one of them under six hundred pounds. But he had never wasted a cent
from the very beginning. Only once, he remembered, in Burgdorf he had
bought a roll for a halfpenny without needing to--he could have stood it
till he got home, and had a cheaper meal there. Well, I told him I
couldn't say as much; many a penny I had wasted. But one could overdo
it, too, for a man had to live. 'Yes, to be sure,' said he. 'I live too,
and am happy. A farthing saved gives me more satisfaction than another
man gets from spending a crown. If I hadn't begun that way I'd never
have come to anything. A poor lad doesn't know enough to stop at the
right time when once he begins; when he's thrown away one penny it pulls
a dozen along after it. But you mustn't think I'm a miserable miser.
Many a man has gone away empty-handed from the big farm-houses and has
got what he needed from me. I didn't forget who has blessed my work and
will soon demand an account from me.' At this I looked the little man up
and down with great respect; nobody could have told what was in him from
his looks. Before we separated I wanted to buy him a bottle of wine for
his good advice. But he refused; he didn't need anything, and whether he
squandered my money or his would come to the same thing on that future
account. Since then I've never seen him; probably he's gone to his
account by now, and if nobody had a worse one than he many a man would
be better off.

"So this is my opinion: every single farthing of your pay that you spend
for such useless things is ill spent. Stay at home, and you'll save not
merely ten crowns, but a lot besides. All the servants complain how many
shoes and clothes they need, when they have to be out in wind and
weather; but do you know how most of their clothes are spoiled? By
running around at night in all kinds of weather, through thick and thin,
and with all that goes on then. If you wear your clothes twenty-four
hours, you evidently use 'em up more than if it was only fourteen. You
don't go calling in wooden shoes, and do you burst out more shoe-nails
by day, or by night when you can't see the stones, the holes, or the
ditches? And tell me, how do your Sunday clothes look after you've
stumbled around in them drunk, pulled each other about, and rolled in
the mud? How many a Sunday jacket has been torn to pieces, the trousers
ruined, the hat lost!

"Many a man would surely need less for his clothes if he stayed at home;
I say nothing about the girls. And think, Uli, if you need ten crowns
now for such useless habits, in ten years you'll need twenty and in
twenty forty, if you have them; for a habit like that doesn't stand
still it grows. And doesn't that lead straight as a string to your old
ways?

"Finally, Uli, you get not only thirty crowns, but also many a penny in
the way of tips when a cow or a horse is sold, and the like. Use those
when you must have an outing and can't give up the tavern. Out of that
money you can drink a glass or two at a review, if you like, or put it
by against your going into garrison; there'll be plenty for that. You've
drawn a lot of your pay; but if you'll believe me and follow my advice
you can get out of debt this year; and next year you can start laying
by. And if you believe me, I don't say that I can pay you only thirty
crowns. When a servant attends to his business and doesn't have his mind
set simply on foolishness; when I can intrust something to him and
things go the same whether I'm with him or not, so that I don't have to
come home every time in anxiety lest something has gone wrong--then I
won't haggle over a crown or two. Think of that, Uli: the better the
habits, the better the name, the better the pay."

At these words Uli's mouth opened and his nose lifted, and at last he
said that that would be fine, but it probably would never happen; he
didn't think he could stand it.

"Well, try it a month and see how it goes; and don't think about
gadding, drinking, and the tavern, and you can do it all right."




CHAPTER V

NOW COMES THE DEVIL AND SOWS TARES AMONG THE GOOD SEED


[Uli's fellow-servants, on his master's farm and on the neighboring
ones, attempt to drag him back into his old ways, chiefly with ridicule
and mockery. At times his resolution fails him, but he masters himself
again. Then a bad-hearted neighbor, who hates Uli's master, tries to
lure him away from his new faith. He praises Uli to the skies, tells him
he is not properly appreciated, and poisons his mind against his master.
Uli grows more and more puffed-up, and is about ready to be caught in
the neighbor's snare; for the latter merely wishes to use him for his
own selfish ends.]




CHAPTER VI

HOW THE WEEDS WERE UPROOTED FROM ULI


[A Neighboring village, Brandywine, is to play a championship game of
_hurnuss_ (a kind of ball game played in spring and autumn in the canton
of Bern), with Uli's village, Potato Hollow. There is deep enmity
between the two places, and the contest is likely to be bitter. The
losing team must give the winners a full dinner, with plenty of wine.
Uli's master urges him to refuse the invitation to play on the team; but
the malicious neighbor talks him over. Though the Potato Hollowers use
all their skill and cunning, even to cheating the umpire, they lose the
game by one point; they must set up the dinner, which ends in a free
fight. A victory in this comforts Potato Hollow somewhat. But two of the
Brandywiners claim damages, and the local players are afraid of severe
judgment if it comes to trial, it being not the first offense. They
agree to a plan, devised by the malicious neighbor, to let the entire
penalty fall on Uli's head, so that they can go scot-free. Uli is to
confess himself the guilty party, and in return for this service the
others, all wealthy farmers' sons, will reimburse him for all expenses
and give him a handsome bonus besides. Uli's master overhears his
neighbor talking to Uli, decides to interfere, and points out to him the
noose into which he is running his head. He advises Uli to demand a
written promise, signed by all, that they will do what has been agreed
upon. Uli brings home the written promise and shows it to his master; it
turns out to be nothing but a certificate that Uli is the guilty party.
Uli is in consternation; but the master promises to help him out if he
will abide by his word in the future. Accordingly, Johannes meets the
scheming neighbor and advises him to have the other players settle up
and leave Uli in peace, or else Uli may have occasion to show the paper
to the governor. Uli hears nothing more about the affair.]




CHAPTER VII

HOW THE MASTER KINDLES A FIRE FOR THE GOOD SEED


[The author points out the disastrous consequences of giving the
servants on a farm only unheated rooms to live in, and no access to the
warm house; on Sundays they seek warmth in the public-houses or
elsewhere, and terrible immorality results. Uli feels the need of a
warm room to sit in, and the master invites him into the house. The
maids are at first much put out, and the mistress too; but the master
upholds Uli, and gradually the new custom wins favor and results in a
betterment of all the servants.]




CHAPTER VIII

A SERVANT BECOMES PROSPEROUS AND SOON THE SPECULATORS APPEAR


[Uli becomes quite settled in steady habits, and soon has a nice little
sum of money in hand. But others get wind of it, and they borrow various
sums of him, promising to pay back at a certain time with interest. Soon
Uli's money is all gone, but he exults in the thought of his interest.
When the time for payment comes the debtors make excuses; and as time
goes on and no money is forthcoming, Uli becomes anxious. At length the
master notices his distress, finds out the trouble, and helps him to
recover most of what he had lent, admonishing him hereafter to put his
savings in the bank.]




CHAPTER IX

ULI GAINS PRESTIGE AND IMPRESSES GIRLS


[Uli's improvement proceeds steadily, and his self-respect with it. The
two maids are greatly impressed by him, and both set their caps for him.
Stini, the elder, is very ugly and cross-grained, but a good worker and
very thrifty. Yrsi, on the other hand, is pretty and sweet-tempered, but
lazy and heedless, and wants a husband so as to avoid working. Jealously
the two watch each other's attempts to catch Uli, who is drawn now to
Yrsi's prettiness, now to Stini's thrift. Their jealousy finally becomes
so furious that Uli begins to cool off, which only makes them the more
eager. Yrsi plans a master-stroke: she uncovers the liquid manure-pit,
and Stini tumbles into it. When she is finally hauled out, not without
difficulty and amid the gibes of the other servants, she falls like a
tigress upon her rival, and the two roll in the dirt and become such a
reeking ball of filth that no one ventures to touch them to pull them
apart. But Uli has had enough of them both and is entirely cured, though
not of his desire for marriage.]




CHAPTER X

HOW ULI SELLS A COW AND ALMOST GETS A WIFE


[Uli is sent to market with a cow, which he sells at a good profit. On
the way home he encounters the daughter of a neighbor, struggling with
four little pigs. She begs his assistance, and as they go along she
gives him a glowing account of her father's prosperity and the size of
her dowry. She invites him into a tavern on the way, and they take some
refreshment together. Then she goes on about herself--how strong she is,
and how much work she can do, and what a good catch she would make. Uli
cannot get in a word edgewise, but is mightily impressed by her imposing
vigor and her father's wealth, so that he goes home with his head in a
whirl. The master and his wife are pleased with Uli's success, and the
master hands over to Uli the profit he has made on the cow. Uli asks the
master about the neighbor's Katie, saying that he thinks she would have
him. The master, however, strongly dissuades him, pointing out that
Katie might make a good field-hand, but not a good wife. She can make
hay, but not soup; and there is not so much wealth, for the farm is
badly managed. The boys will get the land, and the girls can take the
leavings, which will not amount to very much. Besides, the girls are
spoiled and will not know what to do on a small farm, after being used
to a big one; and if Uli stays there he will simply be a servant without
pay. Uli sees that the master is right, and decides to think no more of
the matter.]




CHAPTER XI

HOW DESIRES TAKE FORM IN A SERVANT, AND HOW A GOOD MASTER REALIZES THEM


[Uli gradually reaches something like perfection, and his savings amount
to a handsome sum. But the money seems to come too slowly, and he begins
to feel impatient. The master is at first vexed, but sees that he must
either pay Uli what will satisfy him, or let him go. Uli suggests buying
or renting something, but the master will not hear to it; Uli has too
little money for that. Then one autumn the master goes to market and
encounters there a cousin, Joggeli, who has come, he says, to see
Johannes. Joggeli tells his troubles: he and his wife are getting old
and decrepit, and can no longer look after their large farm as formerly.
Their son Johannes has become too stuck-up for the farm and now runs a
tavern; their daughter is good for nothing, incompetent and lazy. The
overseer whom he has had for eleven years has been cheating him right
and left, and the other servants are hand in glove with him. Joggeli
desires a new overseer, a first-class man on whom he can depend; he
would pay as high as a hundred crowns if he could find what he wants.
Johannes recommends Uli, and Joggeli comes to have a look at him. He
does his best to find some fault in him, but can discover none. Johannes
and his wife are both reluctant to let Uli go, but they think it is for
his good, and so Uli is induced to hire out to Joggeli for sixty crowns,
two pairs of shoes, four shirts, and tips. All hearts are heavy as New
Year's approaches, when the change is to be made. The master himself
plans to drive Uli over to his new place.]




CHAPTER XII

HOW ULI LEAVES HIS OLD PLACE AND REACHES HIS NEW ONE


On the following morning the sleigh was made ready and the box fastened on
it, and Uli had to breakfast with the family in the living-room--coffee,
cheese, and pancakes. When the horse was harnessed Uli could scarcely go,
and when at last the time came, and he stretched out his hand to his
mistress and said, "Good-bye, mother, and don't be angry with me," the
tears rushed to his eyes again; and the mistress had to lift her apron
to her eyes, saying, "I don't know what for; I only hope you'll get
along well. But if you don't like it come back any time, the sooner the
better." The children would scarcely let him go; it seemed as if his
heart would break when the master finally told them to let loose, that
they must start if they wanted to get there today, and it wouldn't be
the last time they were to see each other; but that now there was no
help for it. When they drove away the mistress kept wiping her eyes for
a long time, and had to comfort the children, who, it seemed, could not
stop weeping and lamenting.

In silence the two men drove over the gleaming snow. "Steady!" the
master had to say occasionally, when the wild Blazer struck into a
gallop, pulling the light sleigh along like the wind and kicking the
snow high in the air. "It distresses me," said Uli, "and more and more,
the nearer we get; it's so hard for me! I can't believe that I'm not
running into misfortune; it seems as if it was right ahead of me."

"That's natural," said the master, "and I wouldn't take that as a bad
omen. Think: nearly ten years ago, when you were a ne'er-do-well and I
started you going right, how hard it was for you to do better, and how
little faith you had in the possibility that everything would turn out
right. But still it did, gradually. Your faith got stronger, and now
you're a lad that can be said to have won his battle. So don't be
distressed; what you've got before you now is all the easier for it, and
the worst thing that can happen is that you'll come back to me in a
year. Just keep yourself straight and watch out, for my cousin is
terribly suspicious; but once he's taken your measure, you can put up
with him. You'll have the worst time with the other servants; go easy
with them, little by little, and in kindness as long as you can; then if
that's no good, speak right up so that you'll know where you are--I
wouldn't like a year of that sort of thing myself."

It was a bright, clear January day as they drove through handsome
fields, then between white fences and glittering trees, toward Slough
Farm. This property lay perhaps ten minutes' walk from Uefligen, was
over a hundred acres in size and very fruitful, but not all in one
piece; some fields and one grass-meadow lay at some distance. In wet
years it might be swampy in spots, but that could be managed. As they
drove up, Joggeli came stumping on a stick around the house, which stood
on rather low ground, and said that he had been looking for them for a
long time, and had almost thought they weren't coming; he had become
impatient. He shouted toward the barns, which were built against the
house, for some one to come and take the horse. No one came. Uli himself
had to unhitch and asked where to take Blazer. "Why, is nobody here?"
Nobody came. Then the old man went angrily to the stable and pulled the
door open, and there was the carter calmly currying horses. "Don't you
hear when you're called?" cried Joggeli.

"I didn't hear anything."

"Then prick up your ears and come and take the horse."

He'd have to make room for it first, growled the fellow, and shot in
among his horses like a hawk in a pigeon-house, so that they dashed at
their mangers and kicked, and Uli only by constant "Whoas" and at risk
of life got Blazer into the last stall. There he could find no halter
for a time.

"Should have brought one," was the carter's remark. When Uli went back
to the sleigh and untied his box, the wood-cutters were to help him
carry it; but for a long time none stirred. Finally they dispatched the
boy, who let the handle go when they were on the stairs, so that Uli
almost tumbled down backward and only owed it to his strength that he
did not. The room to which he was shown was not bright, was unheated,
and provided with two beds. He stood in it somewhat depressed, until
they called to him to come down and get something warm to eat. Outside,
a cheerful, pretty girl received him, nutbrown of hair and eyes, red and
white as to cheeks, with kissable lips, blinding white teeth, tall and
strong, yet slender in build, with a serious face behind which lurked
both mischief and good nature.

And over the whole lay that familiar, but indescribable Something, that
always testifies to inward and outward purity, to a soul which hates the
unclean and whose body therefore never becomes unclean, or never seems
so even in the dirtiest work. Freneli--this was the girl's name--was a
poor relation, who had never had a home and was always treated like
Cinderella, but always shook off the ashes--a girl who was never dimmed
outwardly or inwardly, but met God and men and every new day with fresh
and merry laughter, and hence found a home everywhere and made a place
for herself in all hearts, however they might try to resist her;
therefore she was often dearly loved by her relatives even while they
fancied they hated her, casting her out because she was the offspring of
an illicit intercourse between an aristocratic relative and a
day-laborer. Freneli had not opened the door. When Uli came out the
brown eyes rapidly swept over him, and quite seriously Freneli said, "I
suppose you're the new overseer; they want you to come down and get
something warm to eat." There was no need, said Uli, they had eaten
something on the way.

None the less he followed the fleet girl to the living-room in silence.
In it Joggeli and Johannes were already sitting at the table, half
hidden by smoking meat, both fresh and salted, sauerkraut and dried
pears. A plump, friendly old woman came to meet him, wiped her hand on
her apron, Held it out to him, and said, "Are you the new overseer?
Well, well, if you're as good as you are handsome, it'll be all right, I
don't doubt. Sit down and eat, and don't be bashful; the food's there to
be eaten."

On the stove bench there sat yet another form, lean, with a white face
and pale, lustreless eyes; she acted as if she were paying no heed to
anything, but had a pretty box before her, and was winding blue silk
from one ball to another. Joggeli was telling about the time he had had
with the last overseer, and what he had had to stand since then, and how
it seemed to him that it had been much worse than he could remember
now. "All the torment such a fellow can make you, and you can't string
him up for it--it's not right, I swear. It didn't use to be so; there
was a time when they hanged everybody that stole as much as would pay
for the rope. That was something like, but all that's changed. It's
enough to make you think the bad folks have nothing but their own kind
in the government, the way it lets 'em get away. Why, we don't even hang
the women that poison their husbands any more. Now, I'd like to know
what's worse, to break the law by killing somebody, or by letting him
live; it looks to me as if one was as bad as the other. And then it
seems to me that if those who ought to maintain the law are the ones to
break it, they deserve no forgiveness of God or men. Then I think we
ought to have the right to put 'em where they belong, instead of having
to pay 'em besides."

During this long speech of Joggeli's, which he fortunately delivered
inside his four walls, as otherwise it might easily have brought down
upon him an action for high treason, his wife kept constantly saying to
Johannes and especially to Uli, "Take some more, won't you, that's what
it's for; or don't you like it? We give what we've got--it's bad enough;
but at least we don't grudge it to you. (Joggeli, do fill up the
glasses; look, they're empty.) Drink, won't you, there's more where that
came from. Our son gave us the wine; they say it's good; he bought it
himself down in Italy; it actually cost fivepence halfpenny the quart,
and not too full a quart at that." When Uli did not wish to take any
more the old woman still kept putting food before him, stuck the fork
into the largest pieces and then thrust them off on his plate with her
thumb, saying, "Ho, you're a fine fellow if you can't get that down too;
such a big lad must eat if he wants to keep his strength, and we're glad
to give it to him; whoever wants to work has got to eat. Take some more,
do."

But at last Uli really could eat nothing more, took up his cap, prayed,
and stood up to go. "Stay awhile," said Joggeli; "where are you going?
They'll look after your Blazer, I gave 'em strict orders."

"Oh, I'd like to go out and look around a bit and see how I like it,"
said Uli.

"Go then; but come back when you get cold; you're not to work today, do
you hear," said the mother.

"He'll have something to live through," said Joggeli, "they hate like
poison to have him come, and I think the carter would have liked to be
overseer. But I don't care if they are against each other. It's never
good to have the servants on too good terms; it always comes out of the
master."

"Ho," said Johannes, "that's as you take it. If the servants are on one
side and the master on the other, then he has a hard time and can't do
anything. But when the servants are all against each other, and each one
does his best to vex the others, and one won't help another--that's bad
for the master too; for after all in the end everything hits the master
and his interests. I think it's a true saying that peace prospers,
discord destroys. I don't just like it here. Nobody came to take the
horse; nobody wanted to help Uli with his box; each one does as he
likes, and they don't fear anybody. Cousin, that won't be good. I must
tell you, Uli won't stay here under those conditions. If he's to be
overseer and have the responsibility, he wants order too; he won't let
'em all do as they please. Then there'll be a fuss; it will all come
back on him, and if you don't back him up he'll run off. Let me say
frankly: I told him that if he couldn't stand it here any longer, he was
to come back to me, that I'd always have room for him. We're sorry
enough to lose him, and the wife cried when I went off with him, as if
it was her own child."

That seemed very lovely to the old mother and she wiped her own eyes
just from hearing about it, and said, "Have no fear, Cousin Johannes, he
shan't have a hard time with us; we know how to look after him, too. I
am sure that if we've only found some one at last that we can trust and
that takes an interest in things, no pay will seem too high."

"Cousin," said Johannes, "pay isn't everything; you must back Uli up and
you must trust him. We've treated him almost like our own child, and
he'd feel very strange if he was to be nothing but a servant."

"Oh," said the mother, "don't be anxious, Johannes, we'll do all we can.
When we make coffee for ourselves in between meals, it can't be but he
shall have a cup of it. And we have our piece of meat every day, but the
servants only on Sunday. What would become of us if we gave 'em meat
every day? But if you think best we'll see to it that Uli gets a piece
of meat every now and then."

"Cousin," said Johannes, "that's not the thing, and Uli doesn't want it
either, for it only makes the others envious. No matter how you do it,
they find it out just the same. We had a maid once that used to smell of
all the pots when she came in from the field, and she always guessed
when coffee had been given to the other servants; and then she used to
sulk for a week, so that you could hardly stand it. No, you must have
confidence in him and help him; then it'll be all right."

Joggeli did not want the conversation to continue and took Johannes
around through stables and granary, as long as it was light. He asked
for advice and got it, but Johannes would praise nothing. Of the calves
he said that they ought to be looked to, for they had lice; and of the
sheep that they were too cramped for room, that they would squeeze each
other and the lambs would be ruined. For the rest, the inspection was
made in silence. On the way back they found Uli standing gloomily in the
front shed and took him in with them; but he remained down-cast the
whole evening--indeed on the verge of tears whenever any one spoke to
him.

On the following morning Johannes made ready for his return, after
having had to eat beyond his capacity and drink a nip of brandy on top
of it, although he said he never did so in the morning. Uli almost clung
to his coat like a child that fears its father will run away from it;
and when he started to give him his hand, Uli said he would drive a
piece with him if he might; he didn't know when he should see him again.

"And how do you like it?" asked Johannes, as soon as they were away
from the house.

"Oh, master, I can't tell you how I feel. I've been in a lot of places,
but I never saw anything like that. So help me God, there's no order in
the place anywhere. The liquid manure runs into the stable; they've
never cleaned out the dung properly, the horses' hind feet are higher
than the forefeet; half the grain is in the straw; the loft is like a
pig-sty; the tools aren't fit to be seen. The men all look at me as if
they'd like to eat me. Either they give me no answer, or they give me
impudent ones, so that I feel as if I'd have to punch their heads."

"Be patient and calm yourself," said Johannes. "Begin slowly, take the
helm little by little, do all you can yourself, speak pleasantly, and
try to bring 'em around gradually or at least get some on your side.
Then wait awhile and see how things go, until you're familiar with
everything, so that you can tell the best way to take hold. It's no good
to rush right in at the start; usually one doesn't know his business
well enough and takes hold of it at the wrong end. Then when you know
how you stand, and if things don't get any better, sail into 'em good
and proper, let 'em know where they stand with you, and force one or two
of 'em to leave; you'll see an improvement right away. And be of good
cheer; you're no slave, and you can go when you will. But it's a good
apprenticeship for you, and the more a young man has to stand the better
for him. You can learn a lot--even to be master, and that takes more
skill than you think. But I keep feeling that you can make your fortune
at it and make a proper man of yourself. Get on good terms with the
women-folk, but not so as to make the old man suspicious; if you can get
on their good side, you've won a lot. But if they keep inviting you away
from your work to drink coffee with 'em, don't go; stay with the
others. And always be the first one in the work; then they'll have to
give in at last, willing or not."

This put Uli on his feet. He found new courage; but still be could
hardly leave the master. A number of things came into his mind, about
which he ought to ask; it seemed as if he knew nothing. He asked about
the sowing, and how he had best do this or that; whether this plant grew
here, and how that one should be raised. There was no end to his
questions, until finally Johannes stopped at an inn, drank another
bottle with him, and then almost drove him off home.

Encouraged, Uli finally set off, and now for the first time felt his
importance to the fullest extent. He was somebody, and his eyes saw
quite differently, as he now set foot on the farm that was to get its
rightful attention from him alone. With quite a different step he
approached the house where he was, in a sense, to govern, and where they
were waiting for him as a rebellious regiment awaits its new colonel.




CHAPTER XIII

HOW ULI INSTALS HIMSELF AS OVERSEER


Calmly, with resolution taken, he joined the workers; it was afternoon,
shortly after dinner. They were threshing by sixes. The milker and
carter were preparing fodder; these he joined and helped. They did not
need him, they said, and could do it alone.--He couldn't do anything on
the threshing-floor, he said, until they started to clear up, and so
today he would help them prepare fodder and manure. They grumbled; but
he took hold and with his wonted adroitness mixed the fodder and shook
the dust from it, and so silently forced the others to work better than
usual. Below in the passage he shook out the fodder again, and made the
fodder piles so fine and even along the walls, sweeping up with the
broom the path between the horse-fodder and the cow-fodder, that it was
a pleasure to see him. The milker said that if they did it that way
every day, they couldn't prepare in two days what the stock would eat
in one. That depended, said Uli, how one was accustomed to prepare, and
according to how the stock treated the fodder.

When they went at the manure he had his troubles with the milker, who
wanted to take only the coarsest stuff off the top, as it were the cream
from the milk. It was nice and warm outside, said Uli, and the stock
wouldn't get cold; they would work thoroughly this time. And indeed it
was necessary, for there was old stuff left that almost required the
mattock before they could get to the stone floor of the stable. But
there was no time left to dig out between the stones. They had to dip
out the manure-pit, for the liquid was rising and almost reached the
back of the stable; and only with difficulty could he get them to carry
what they clipped out into the courtyard and not pour it into the road.
When the manure was outside no one wanted to spread it, and the answer
he got to his question was that they had no time today; they must soon
fodder; it would be time enough in the morning.--It could easily be done
during the foddering, said Uli, and the dung must be spread while still
warm, especially in winter. Once frozen, it wouldn't settle any more and
one would get no manure from it. With that he went at it himself, and
the two men calmly let him work and made fun of him behind the
stable-doors and in the fodder-passage.

In the house they had long since begun to wonder that the new overseer
did not come home, and to fear that he might have driven off and away.
Joggeli had sat down at the window from which he could see the road,
almost looked his eyes out, and began to scold: he hadn't thought
Johannes was as bad as that, and here he was his cousin, too, and such a
trick he wouldn't play on the merest stranger; but nowadays one couldn't
place reliance upon anybody, not even one's own children.

While he was in his best vein, Freneli came in and said, "You can look a
long time; the new man's out there spreading the manure they've taken
out; he probably thinks it's better not to let it pile up. If nobody
else will do it he probably thinks he must do it himself."

"Why doesn't he show himself when he comes home?" said Joggeli; and
"Good gracious, why doesn't he come to supper?" said the mother. "Go and
tell him to come in at once, we're keeping something warm for him."

"Wait," said Joggeli, "I'll go out myself and see how he's doing it and
what's been done."

"But make him come," said the mother; "I think he must have got good and
hungry."

Joggeli went out and saw how Uli was carefully spreading the manure and
thoroughly treading it down; that pleased him. He wanted to look for the
milker and the carter, to show them how Uli was doing it and to tell
them to do it so in the future; he looked into the fodder-passage and
could not take his eyes from it for a long time, as he saw the handsome,
round, appetizing fodder-piles and the clean path between them. He
looked into the stable, and as he saw the cows standing comfortably in
clean straw and no longer on old manure he too felt better, and so he
now went to Uli and told him that it had not really been the intention
that he should do all the dirty work himself; that was other people's
business. He had had the time for it, said Uli; there was no place for
him in the threshing, and so he had done this in order to show how he
wanted it done in the future. Joggeli wanted to bid him come in; but Uli
said he would first like to watch the cleaning up after the threshing;
he wanted to see how they did it. There he saw that the men simply
thought of getting through quickly. The grain was poorly threshed; a
number of ears could still be seen; it was winnowed still worse. The
grain in the bin was not clean, so that he felt like emptying it and
beginning the work over; however, he controlled himself and thought he
would do it otherwise tomorrow.--But in the house Joggeli was saying
that he liked the new man, for he knew his business; but he hoped he
wouldn't boss too much--he didn't like that. You couldn't do things in
all places just alike, and by and by he wouldn't have any orders to give
himself.

After supper Uli came to the master and asked him what was to be done
during the winter; it seemed to him that the work should be so arranged
that one should be all ready for the new work when the spring came.

Yes, said Joggeli, that might be good; but one couldn't do everything
all at once; things had to take their time. The threshing would last
about three weeks more; then they could begin to cut wood, and by the
time they were through with that the spring would just about be at hand.

If he might say so, said Uli, it seemed to him that they ought to bring
in the wood now. It was fine weather and the road good, so it would be
twice as easy. In February the weather was generally bad and the ground
soft; then you couldn't budge anything and ruined all the wagons.

That wouldn't do very well, thought Joggeli; it was not customary to
begin threshing in February.

He hadn't meant that, said Uli. They should continue threshing. He and
one more would cut down and get ready all the wood the carter could
bring home, and until a load was ready the carter could help them in the
woods.

Then they couldn't thresh by sixes any more, said Joggeli, if he took a
man from the threshing, and when they all cut wood together they could
do a lot in a short time.

"Well," said Uli, "as you will; but I thought this way: couldn't the
milker help in the threshing during the morning and the afternoon, too,
if the others help with the manure and the foddering at noon? And
sometimes two can do more in the woods than a whole gang, when nobody
wants to take hold."

"Yes," said Joggeli, "sometimes it goes that way; but let's let the wood
go: the threshing's more pressing now."--

"As you will," said Uli, and went somewhat heavy-hearted to bed.

"Well, you are the queerest man," said the old woman to her husband. "I
liked what Uli said awfully well. It would have been to our advantage;
and if those two fine gentlemen, the carter and the milker, don't have
time to be drying their noses in the sun all day, it won't hurt 'em a
bit, the scamps. Uli will be worth nothing to you, if you go on that
way."

"But I won't take orders from a servant. If I let him do that he'd think
nobody but he was to give orders. You've got to show 'em right from the
start how you want to have things." grumbled Joggeli.

"Yes, you're the right one to show 'em; you spoil the good ones, and the
bad ones you're afraid of and let 'em do as they please--that's your
way," said his wife. "It's always been that way, and it isn't going to
be any different now."

The next morning Uli told the mistress that one maid was superfluous on
the threshing-floor, and she might keep for the house whichever she
wanted. And Uli threshed through to the floor, and held his flail so
that it touched his neighbor's and forced him to thresh the whole length
of the grain to the wall; and when one section was done, the secondary
tasks were quickly finished and they threshed again; and all this Uli
effected not by words, but, by the rapidity of his own work. In the
house they remarked that it seemed as if they must have different flails
for the threshing; these sounded quite different, and as if they went
through to the floor. The maid who was released told Freneli how they
were going to do for this fellow; he needn't think that he was going to
start a new system, for they weren't going to let themselves be
tormented by such a fellow. She was sorry for him; he was well-mannered
and he certainly could work, she must admit. Everything he put his hands
to went well. While they were threshing the carter had ridden off,
ostensibly to the blacksmith. The milker had gone off with the cow, but
without telling his errand. It was noon before either came back, and
neither had worked a stroke.

After dinner Uli helped peel the remaining potatoes, as is customary in
well-ordered households if time permits; the others ran out, scarcely
taking time to pray. When Uli came out there was an uproar in the barn;
two couples were wrestling on the straw of the last threshing, while the
others looked on. He called to the milker to come quickly and take out
the calves and look to them; probably they needed to be shorn and
salved. The milker said that wasn't Uli's business; nobody was to touch
his calves; they would be all right for a long while. And the carter
stepped up to Uli, crying, "Shall we have a try at each other--if you
dare?" Uli's blood boiled, for he saw that it was a put-up job; yet he
could not well refuse. Sooner or later, he well knew, he would have to
stand up to them and show his mettle. And so he said to himself, let it
be now; then they would have his measure.

"Ho, if you want to try it, I'm willing," he replied, and twice running
he flung the Carter on his back so that the floor cracked. Then the
milker said he would like to try too; to be sure, it was scarcely worth
while to try falls with a walking-stick, with legs like pipe-stems and
calves like fly-specks. With his brown hairy arms he grasped Uli as if
he would pull him apart like an old rag. But Uli held his ground and the
milker made no headway. He grew more and more angry, took hold with ever
greater venom, spared neither arms nor legs, and butted with his head
like an animal, until at last Uli had enough of it, collected all his
strength, and gave him such a swing that he flew over the grain-pile
into the middle of the floor and fell on the further side; there he lay
with all fours in the air, and for a long time did not know where he
was.

As if by chance Freneli had brought food for the hogs and had seen Uli's
victory. In the house she told her godmother that she had seen something
that tickled her. They had wanted to give Uli a beating; he had had to
wrestle with them, but he was a match for them all. He had thrown the
hairy milker on his back as if he had never stood up. She was glad that
he could manage them all; then they would be afraid of him and respect
him. But Uli, interrupted in his examination of the calves, seized a
flail and merely told the milker that he had no time for the calves
today; they would look to them another day. The cleaning of the grain
took more time than usual, and yet they were through quicker and the
grain was better cleaned; but they had exerted themselves more, too, and
in consequence had felt the cold less. When Uli told the master how much
grain he had obtained, the latter said that they had never done so much
this year and yet today they had been threshing the fallen grain.

In the evening, as they sat at table, the master came and said he
thought it would be convenient to cut wood now; the horses weren't
needed, the weather was fine, and it seemed to him that the threshing
and the wood-cutting could go on together if properly arranged. The
carter said the horses' hoofs were not sharpened; and another said that
they couldn't go on threshing by sixes, but at most by fours, and would
never get done. Uli said nothing.

Finally, when Joggeli had no further answers to give, and was out-talked
by the servants, he said to Uli, "Well, what do you think?"

"If the master orders it's got to be done," answered Uli. "Hans, the
carter, and I will bring the wood in, and if the milker helps in the
threshing and the others help him with fodder and manure, the threshing
won't suffer." "All right, do it so," said Joggeli, and went out.

Now the storm broke over Uli's head, first in single peals, then in
whole batteries of thunder. The carter swore he wouldn't go into the
woods; the milker swore he wouldn't touch a flail; the others swore they
wouldn't thresh by fours. They wouldn't be howled at; annoyed; they
weren't dogs; they knew what was customary, etc. But they knew where all
this came from, and he had better look out for himself if he was going
to have the evening bells ring at six here (in the winter three o'clock
is the hour, six in summer). Many a fellow had come along like a
district governor, and then had had to make tracks like a beaten hound.
It was a bad sort of fellow who got his fellow-servants into trouble in
order to put the master's eyes out. But they would soon give such a
fellow enough of it. Uli said little in reply, only that the master's
orders had to be carried out. The master had ordered, not he, and if
none of them got off worse than he they ought to thank God for it. He
wasn't going to torment anybody, but he wouldn't be tormented either; he
had no cause to fear any of them. Then he told the mistress to be kind
enough to put up lunch for three, for they would scarcely come back from
the woods to dinner.

The next morning they went out into the woods. Much as the carter
growled and cursed, he had to go along. The milker would not thresh and
the master did not appear. Then the mistress plucked up courage and went
out and said that she thought he needn't be too high and mighty to
thresh; better folks than he had threshed before now. They couldn't
afford to pay a milker who wanted to dry his teeth in the sun all the
morning. So the wood was brought in, they scarcely knew how; and in
February weather and roads were so bad that they would have had a hard
time with the wood.

Hard as Uli had worked outside (and he had a bad time of it, for he
always took the heavy end, wishing to be master not only in giving
orders, but in working too), still in the evening he always helped to
prepare whatever vegetables the mistress ordered, no matter what they
were. He never shirked and he prevented the others from doing so; the
more they helped each other, he said, the sooner they would get done,
and if they wanted food it was only reasonable that they should help get
it ready. He himself always helped wherever he could: when one of the
maids had washed a basket of potatoes and did not like to carry it alone
because she would get all wet, he would help her carry it himself, or
would order the boy (half child, half servant) to do so; and when the
latter at first refused, or failed to come at his word, he punished him
until the boy learned to obey. It was not right, he said, for one
servant to refuse to help another take care of his clothes, or for
servants to plague each other; that was just wantonly making service
worse than it needed to be. But it was long before they grasped this,
for a peculiar atmosphere existed there. The men teased the maids
wherever they could; nowhere was there any mutual assistance. When one
of the men was asked to lend a hand he scoffed and cursed and would not
budge; even the mistress had to endure this, and when she complained to
Joggeli he simply said she was always complaining. He didn't hire
servants to help the women-folk; they had something else to do beside
hauling flowers around.

The behavior of Uli, who was not accustomed to such discord in a house,
attracted attention and brought down upon him the bitter mockery and
scorn of the men, which was aggravated intolerably by other causes. On
the very first Saturday the milker refused, out of sheer wilfulness, to
attend to the manure, but let it go till Sunday morning. This Uli would
not permit; there was absolutely no reason for putting it off, and it
would keep them from cleaning up around the house on Saturday, as was
customary. Besides, the commandment said men shouldn't work on Sunday
"thou nor thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant." Least of all was it
becoming to leave the dirtiest tasks for Sunday. The milker said,
"Sunday fiddlesticks! What do I care about Sunday? I won't do it today."

Uli's blood boiled hotly; but he composed himself and said merely, "Well
then, I will."

The master, who had heard the clamor, went into the house, grumbling to
himself, "If only Uli wouldn't insist on bossing and starting new
customs; I don't like that. Folks have manured on Sunday time out of
mind, and were satisfied with it; it would have been good enough for him
too."




CHAPTER XIV

THE FIRST SUNDAY IN THE NEW PLACE


[Uli insists on going to church, but can get no one to accompany him,
and all but Freneli ridicule him. The people at church recognize in Uli
the new overseer, and wonder how long he will stay; but to his face they
tell him to make what profit he can out of Joggeli. He comes home to new
ridicule but, facing it down, retires to his cold room to read his
Bible. A message is brought from the others to come and join them. They
tell him that each new overseer is expected to treat the others to
brandy or wine, and all plan to go to the tavern after supper. Freneli
is surprised that he is going with them, and cautions him to be on his
guard. At the tavern all begin to flatter him at once, but Uli is
mindful of what he heard at church and of Freneli's caution. One by one
the others all leave, except one man; he offers to take Uli a-courting.
Uli half yields, and is led into a dark alley where the others set upon
him. He seizes a cudgel from one of them, lays about him with a will,
flings one of them into a court, and vanishes, leaving the discomfited
assailants to nurse their wounds and trail along home, after vainly
waiting for him to appear.]




CHAPTER XV

ULI GAINS A PLACE IN HOUSE AND FIELD, AND EVEN IN SOME HEARTS


[Uli requests the mistress to be allowed to sit in the house on Sunday
afternoons. Freneli, Joggeli, and especially Elsie are put out, the
latter because she is wont to spread out her finery on the table and Uli
is in her way. But Uli wins her over by admiring the finery, and Elsie
begins to set her cap for him. Uli cleans up about the house, and
effects many an improvement in yard and field. This vexes Joggeli, and
still more so when Uli forces him to plan the spring work. Joggeli makes
Uli's life a burden, blows hot and cold, refuses to give orders to the
servants, and censures Uli to the others for taking the reins in his
hands.]




CHAPTER XVI

ULI GETS NEW COWS AND NEW SERVANTS


[Uli is sent to market to sell two cows and bring back two others. On
the way a man catches up with him and buys his cows at a higher price
than Uli expected to get. At the market he makes two excellent
purchases, and comes away with more money than he had before. He is
tempted to conceal this profit from the master, and keep it for himself,
but better counsels prevail. Joggeli bids him share the profit with the
milker, and reluctantly pays Uli's expenses out of his own pocket. He
boasts to his wife that he has tested Uli by sending a man to him to buy
the old cows; she upbraids him for this underhandedness. Uli forces
Joggeli to be the first farmer with his haying, but cannot get him to
supply decent tools. The other servants are lazy and slack--the milker
and carter especially so. Although Uli urges and drives him in vain,
Joggeli takes malicious enjoyment in his distress. At last Uli loses all
patience and demands the instant dismissal of the carter and the milker,
his own departure being the alternative. Joggeli is with difficulty
persuaded to take this step; but once taken, the good results are
immediate and permanent. The carter and the milker, at first expecting
to be taken back in a day or two, finally beg for their old places; but
Uli is firm. New men are engaged, with instructions to take their orders
from Uli.]




CHAPTER XVII

HOW FATHER AND SON OPERATE ON A SERVANT


[Things now run like a newly oiled machine; but Joggeli is discontented
and constantly seeks cause for complaint against Uli. He arranges with
the miller to have the latter attempt to bribe Uli, to see what he will
do. Uli dresses down the miller, and the latter, to clear himself,
betrays the instigator of the plan. Uli at once begins to pack up, while
the mistress, informed by the miller, chides her husband. With great
difficulty the latter is induced to beg Uli's pardon and assure him that
the offense will not be repeated. The harvest goes on this year as never
before. Joggeli's son Johannes comes with his wife Trinette and three
children for the harvest festival. Trinette is the same kind of fool as
Elsie; they think of nothing but their finery, their ailments, and their
supposedly fine manners. This annual visit is always a torment. Trinette
plays the grand lady, the children are a constant nuisance, and the
whole house is in an uproar. Johannes takes a fancy to Uli, and offers
him any amount of pay to take a place with him. Freneli overhears the
conversation and tells the mistress, who is enraged with Johannes.
Joggeli bursts out into a tirade against Freneli.]




CHAPTER XVIII

HOW A GOOD MOTHER STRAIGHTENS OUT THE CROOKED, AND TURNS EVIL INTO GOOD


[Joggeli sows in Uli's mind suspicion of Freneli, intimating that she is
injuring him behind his back. Uli is deeply wounded, and shows it; but
neither Freneli nor her aunt knows the reason, and Joggeli is silent.
Finally the mistress asks Uli, discovers the trouble, and undeceives him
as to Freneli; Joggeli wonders at the restored peace, but dares not ask
about it.]




CHAPTER XIX

A DAUGHTER APPEARS AND WOULD EDUCATE ULI


[The other servants had been wondering at Uli's good behavior, and, not
being able to understand it from their viewpoint, had sought for the
explanation in self-interest; for Elsie had begun to be very silly with
Uli. As time goes on, this becomes more and more noticeable, and Uli him
self is not a little put out by it. Elsie proposes to visit her brother,
and Uli is to drive her. On the open road, where there is none to see,
she bids him sit beside her; when they come to a village she sends him
back to the front seat, and it is "My servant" this and "My servant"
that. Uli is offended, but Elsie excuses herself and finally weeps until
Uli yields and joins her again. She coaxes him and flirts with him all
the way. Johannes welcomes them cordially enough. The "visit," however,
consists principally in a clothing contest between Elsie and Trinette,
from which the latter, by a shrewd stroke, issues victorious, and thus
accelerates Elsie's discomfited departure. Johannes's mismanagement is
mercilessly exposed, and his ultimate ruin clearly foreshadowed. On the
homeward road Elsie waxes affectionate, and spends most of the time
after nightfall in kissing Uli, who, however, is indifferent to her
advances.]




CHAPTER XX

ULI HAS THOUGHTS AND BECOMES A CALCULATOR


So the trip went off safely and innocently, but not without
consequences. Little by little the thought began to turn Uli's head that
he could easily make himself happy by getting a rich wife; for,
unreasonable as it is, in our ordinary speech to get happiness and to
get wealth are synonymous. So often we hear it said, "He's lucky; he
made a fine marriage and got over ten thousand gulden with his wife. Of
course she's a fool and gives him lots of trouble; but what's the odds
if you've got money? Money's all that counts." Uli was not free from
this general and yet so baseless notion; for did he not wish to become a
rich man himself? When he thought of Elsie's utterances, which, to be
sure, were made in the rain and mist, it seemed more and more probable
to him that she would take him if he tried hard to get her. The brother
had treated him so amicably and shown him so much confidence that he
probably would really not greatly oppose it; if Elsie was to marry
somebody, Uli might suit better than many another. The parents, he
thought, wouldn't like it at first, and would make a fuss; but if Elsie
managed it and the thing was done, he wasn't afraid of not winning them
over. The thought of one day living on Slough Farm and being his own
master there, was infinitely pleasant to him. In twenty years, he
sometimes calculated, he would easily double his wealth; he would show
the whole district what farming could bring in. One plan after the other
rose before him--how to go about it, all the things he would do, what
the pastor would say when he published the banns, what the people in his
home district would say when some day he would come along with his own
horse and wagon and it would be noised around that he had six horses in
his stable and ten of the finest cows. To be sure, when he saw Elsie
lolling around lazily there were blots on his calculation. He realized
that she was no housekeeper, and was moreover queer and extravagant. The
last fault she might overcome, he thought, if she had a husband. He
could afford to have servants then; other folks got along without the
wife doing anything, and with such wealth it wouldn't matter much. There
was something the matter with every woman; he'd never heard of any that
was so perfect that one wouldn't wish for anything else. Rich, rich!
That was the thing. And still, when he saw Elsie, his calculations came
to a sudden stop. This fading, languishing, sleepy thing seemed too
unpalatable to him. When she touched him with her clammy hands he
shuddered; he felt as if he must wipe the spot she had touched. And then
when he heard her talk, so affected and stupid, it almost drove him out
of the room, and he had to reflect: No, you can't stand living with this
woman; every word she said would shame you. But when he was away from
Elsie again he saw the handsome farm, heard the money clink, imagined
himself looked up to, and he felt as if Elsie were not so bad after all;
so he would gradually persuade himself that perhaps she was cleverer
than she seemed, and, if she loved a man and he talked sensibly to her,
something might yet be done with her, and with a proper man she might
yet turn out a very sensible woman.

All this merely went on in Uli's head; but murder will out. The trip had
made Uli and Elsie more familiar; they used a different tone in speaking
to each other, Elsie regarded him with the peculiar glance of a certain
understanding. Uli, to be sure, tried to avoid her eyes, especially when
they were in sight of Freneli; for just as Elsie's riches allured him
more strongly every day, so Freneli seemed to him ever handier and
prettier. The best thing, he often thought, would be to have Freneli
stay with them and manage the household. But Elsie ran after Uli more
than ever, and when on a Sunday afternoon she was alone with him for an
instant in the living-room, she would not rest until they got to
kissing. She would have given anything to take another drive with him;
but she did not know where to go, and when they went to market her
father and mother went along. Just the same, if Uli had had bad
intentions and had wanted to secure a marriage by an evil road--of which
there are cases enough with men worse than Uli--Elsie would have given
plenty of opportunity, nor would she have done anything to shield
herself. "Uli, don't be so timid!" she would perhaps have said. But Uli
was honest and desired no evil; so he shunned such opportunities, and
often avoided the chances Elsie gave him, much preferring to deserve her
than to seduce her. He worked all the harder, took especial pains with
every detail, and tried to earn the commendation that, if he were not
rich already, he could not fail to become so with such aptitude; this,
he thought, would have as much weight with the parents as many thousand
francs. He did not think of that terrible saying--"Only a servant." But,
his fellow-servants had eyes in their heads, too, and long before Uli
had begun to think of anything, they had noticed Elsie's indiscreet
conduct and had teased Uli about it. More and more they ascribed his
activity to the intention of becoming son-in-law. The change since the
trip was not hidden from them. They invented divers accounts of what had
happened, taunted Uli to his face and calumniated him behind his back.
Whenever he required anything new of them they interpreted it to mean
that he wanted to get himself valued at their expense; therefore they
took it ill, became unruly, and said they would take him down a peg.
They lay in wait for Uli and Elsie wherever they could, tried to disturb
or to witness their accidental or intentional meetings, and to play all
kinds of tricks on them; and they would have dearly loved to uncover
some serious scandal, but Uli gave them no opportunity. With him the
scale still hung in the balance. At times Elsie and his life on Slough
Farm became so bitter to him that he would have liked to be a hundred
miles away. But the girl grew more and more in love with him, bought him
gifts at every opportunity, gave him more than he wanted to accept, and
acted in such a silly way with him that it finally attracted her
parents' attention. Joggeli grumbled: there you had it now; now you
could see the scheme Uli was working; but he would put a spoke in his
wheel. At the same time he did nothing; and in secret he thought that
his son, who so often tricked his father, would be served just right if
Elsie played the fool and disgraced him by having to marry a servant.

But the mother took it very much to heart and talked to Elsie: she
should not be so silly with Uli; she must think what folks would say and
how they would gossip about her. It was truly not seemly for a rich girl
to treat a servant like a sweetheart. No, she had nothing against Uli,
but still he was only a servant, and Elsie surely didn't want to marry a
servant.

Then Elsie blubbered: everything she did was wrong; in God's name, they
were always complaining of her; now they accused her of being too stuck
up, now of making herself too cheap; when she said a kind word to a
servant, folks made such a to-do that it couldn't be worse if she had
lost her good name; nobody wanted her to have any pleasure, and
everybody was down on her; it would be best for her if she could die
soon. And Elsie blubbered more and more vehemently, until she was all
out of breath, and her mother had to undo her bodice hastily, thinking
in all seriousness that Elsie was going to die. Then the good mother
held her peace again; for she did not want to scold Elsie to death. She
merely complained at times to Freneli that she didn't know what to do.
If she scolded, Elsie was capable of doing something foolish; but if she
let things go and something really did happen, then she would get the
blame for everything, and people would ask why hadn't she done something
in time. Of Uli she couldn't complain; he was acting very sensibly, and
she even thought the whole thing was disagreeable to him. And she would
be sorry to send him off packing without notice, before they had more
grounds of complaint; for, if she did, Joggeli would be the first to
accuse her of dismissing through groundless anxiety the best servant
they had ever had. But that was the way he always did--when she wanted
him to speak he would keep still, and when she wanted him to keep still
he would always meddle. She, Freneli, should keep her eyes open, and if
she saw anything out of the way she was to tell her. But from Freneli
the old woman got little comfort; she acted as if the whole affair were
none of her business. Elsie could not refrain from talking to Freneli
about Uli--how fine and handsome he was, and how she wouldn't take her
oath that she wouldn't marry him yet; if her people angered her by
refusing to do what she wanted, they'd just see what she'd do. She
wouldn't take long to think about it, and she'd only have to say the
word and Uli would go and have the banns published. Then, when Freneli
would say little to all this, Elsie would accuse her of being jealous.
Or when Freneli would talk to her and tell her not to make a fool of
Uli, whom she didn't really want, or would tell her not to grieve her
parents in this way, Elsie would accuse her of wanting Uli herself and
of trying to entice her away from him in order to climb up in the world;
but Uli wouldn't take such a penniless pauper as she--he was too shrewd
for that. She needn't imagine that she could get a husband so easily;
the poorest servant would think twice before he'd take a poor girl,
and twice again before he'd take a bastard--that was the greatest
disgrace there was.

[Illustration: THE BATH BENJAMIN VAUTIER]

Although Freneli felt such speeches deeply she would give no sign of it,
would neither weep nor scold, but say at most, "Elsie, that you're not a
bastard too isn't your fault; and that you haven't one by now isn't your
fault either."

The hardest thing for Freneli was to regulate her conduct toward Uli.
The more Elsie's money went to his head, the more he felt himself drawn
to Freneli; he could not bear to have her give him short answers or to
seem angry with him, and tried in every way to pacify her and win her
favor. He often fled from Elsie, and never sought her out; he never fled
from Freneli, but often looked for her; while Freneli fled from him and
Elsie ran after him. Freneli wanted to be short and dry with Uli, and
still, with the best intentions, she often could not but be friendly
with the friendly lad, and at times forgot herself and would spend two
or three minutes chatting and laughing with him. When Elsie happened to
see this there were terrible scenes. First she would make the wildest
accusations against Freneli, until she could talk no more and was
completely out of breath; when in this state she would sometimes rush at
her, and would have tried to beat her if she had had the strength. Then
she would pitch into Uli; a hundred times he would have to hear that he
was a filthy fellow and only a servant; that she saw what she had to
expect if she was such a fool as folks thought; but, thank heaven, there
was still time enough, and she wouldn't be such a fool as to bring her
money to a man who she was afraid would waste it all on women. Then she
would begin to bawl at such false statements, and say she was going to
die either by hanging or shooting herself. Often she would become
reconciled in the midst of her tears, and Uli had to promise not to run
after others any more, and not to say another good word to that old
Freneli, who just wanted to lead him on and astray. Again, the quarrel
would continue and Elsie would sulk. Then Uli would think: a girl that
was so jealous, and so often told him he was a servant, and bawled and
sulked so much, wouldn't be the most agreeable kind of wife; it would be
hard living with her, and it would be better if he drove the whole thing
out of his mind. But as soon as he became indifferent to her sulks,
Elsie grew anxious and sought a reconciliation; then she would buy him
something, or seek some other opportunity to flatter Uli, and beg him to
love her, for she had no other joy in life. And when she made him so
angry he mustn't take it ill of her; she only did it because her love
was so great and she didn't want anybody else to have him--etc., etc.
When she once had him to herself she wouldn't be jealous any more; but
so long as she was all in the air and didn't know where she stood, she
often felt as if she'd rather die. And she didn't really know whether
Uli loved her, either; sometimes it seemed to her that, if he loved her
very much, he'd go at it quite differently, and take hold of things
better; but he was just like a wooden doll and never lifted a hand. Then
when Uli would say that he didn't know how to do any better, that he too
didn't exactly know whether Elsie really wanted him, and if she was in
earnest about it she should speak with her parents, or they would go to
the pastor and announce their engagement and then see what would come of
it, Elsie would say that there was no hurry about it; they could get
married any time; the chief thing was that he should love her, and then
a year would be soon enough, or if he went at it right (that depended on
him, she would see about it), six months; but with that Freneli he must
have nothing more to do or she would scratch both their eyes out and the
hussy would have to leave the house.

Of course the affair made talk for miles around, and people told much
more than there was to tell. There were two parties: one thought the
parents were rightly served, the other thought Uli would get his deserts
with his rich wife. The longer it lasted, and it was over a year now,
the more probable seemed his success; the more the servants submitted
to Uli and ranged themselves on the side of the presumptive son-in-law,
so that the farm took on a more and more prosperous appearance and Uli
became more and more indispensable. Even Joggeli, into whose money-bags
the cash profit flowed, and who could easily figure what twenty
additional cords of fodder and a thousand sheaves of grain meant, choked
down his anger and shut one eye, comforting himself by saying that he
would use Uli as long as possible; and if matters ever got serious, why
then there would still be time enough. Once when Johannes, having heard
the gossip, came along, and cursed and swore and demanded that Uli be
discharged, Joggeli would not hear to it; as long as he lived he would
give orders here, and Johannes would be glad to have Uli if he could get
him; what went on here was none of his business, and if they wanted to
give Elsie to Uli that was none of his business either. He needn't think
he'd inherit everything; for the time being everything that they still
had and that he hadn't wormed out of 'em was theirs; the more Johannes
carried on, the sooner Elsie would have to marry--not that it would have
to be Uli; there were others too. They knew well enough how much he
loved them; if he just had the money he'd never ask again after father
and mother and Elsie; and they could all marry again for all he cared,
and if to tramps or gipsies it would be all one to him.

Thus Joggeli talked to his son in his nagging, coughing way, so that the
mother grew quite anxious, and interrupted: Johannes needn't be afraid;
that wouldn't happen, for she was still at the helm and Elsie wouldn't
force them to everything, and Uli was a good lad, and so on. Then
Johannes wanted to talk with Uli himself, but he was not to be found; he
had gone out to get a cow, it, was said. Trinette, this time much more
beautifully sulphur-yellow than Elsie had been, strutted around her with
contemptuous mien and turned-up nose, and finally said, "Fie and for
shame, how common you're making yourself! To take up with a servant!
It's a disgrace for the whole family! If my folks had known that my
husband's sister would marry a servant, they'd have given him the mitten
like a flash; they didn't like him any too well as it was; but I was
fool enough to want him absolutely. We can't count you as one of the
family any more, and then you can see where you'll find a roof for your
head; you can't stay here any more--I say this once and for all. Faugh,
to have a love-affair with a servant! You give me the creeps; I can't
bear to look at you any more. Ugh, aren't you ashamed to the bottom of
your soul, and don't you feel like crawling into the ground?"

However, Elsie was not ashamed, but paid Trinette back heartily in her
own coin: a girl could choose anybody she wanted for her sweetheart, and
could marry a servant or a master; all men were alike before God. But if
once she was a wife she'd be ashamed to have her name connected now with
the stable-boy and now with the butcher, now with the herder and now
with the carter, and finally with all the peddlers and traders, and to
have children with no two noses the same and looking as much alike as
Swiss and Italians. But for Freneli and the mother, the two
sisters-in-law would have torn the grass-green and the sulphur-yellow
dresses from each other's bodies. When the mother wanted to help out
Trinette by speaking for her, Elsie became so excited that they had to
put her to bed. Now, she said, when she recovered consciousness and
speech--now she surely would do what she wanted; she wouldn't let
herself be made into sausages like a fat sow; and it was cruel of her
parents to want just one child to inherit and to let the other child
pine away without a husband, just so all the money would stay in one
pile.

Johannes and his wife did not stay long. Turning in frequently on the
homeward road, and giving up all restraint, they spun out at length the
whole story to their friends and colleagues, male and female, and their
story carried the rumor to complete certainty. The brother and his wife
told it themselves, people said, and they ought to know.

Not long afterward Uli drove to market with a horse, but soon saw that
he could not sell it for what he was instructed to get, so, as it was
bad weather, he took it from the market-place and stabled it in an inn.
Turning a corner to enter the inn, he bumped into his old master. With
unconcealed joy Uli held out his hand and told him how glad he was to
see him and to be with him for a while. The master was somewhat cool and
spoke of much business, but finally named a place where they could drink
a bottle in peace. There, after they were seated in a corner fairly well
out of sight, they began the preliminaries. Johannes asked whether there
had been much hay, and Uli said yes, and asked whether his grain had
fallen too; the first wind had felled theirs. "You're doing well,"
continued the master after some further talk, "and what do I hear? Folks
say you're soon to be farmer at Slough Farm."

"Why, who says that?" asked Uli.

"Oh, folks say it's being talked about far and wide, and they say it's
surely true."

"Folks always know more than those concerned," said Uli.

"There must be something in it," answered the master. "Oh," said Uli, "I
wouldn't say that it might not be some time, but it's a long way off
yet; nothing has been said about it and it might turn out either way."

"Well," said Johannes, "it seems to me there's been enough talk about
it."

"Why, how so?" asked Uli.

"Why, the girl's pregnant!"

"That's an accursed lie," cried Uli, "I haven't been near her. I won't
say that I couldn't have been; but I'd have been ashamed to. Everybody
would have blamed me and thought it was a scoundrelly trick, like a good
many others; and I didn't want that. Folks mustn't say of me that I got
a rich wife that way." "So, so!" said Johannes; "then things aren't as
I've heard, and here I thought that Uli wanted to ask me to be his
spokesman. I shouldn't have liked that, I must say, and that's the
reason I'd have preferred not to meet you. I'm glad it isn't so; I'd
have dirtied my own hands with it too. And in any case it would have
vexed me if you'd done like other skunks. But something is in it?"

"Oh," replied Uli, "I wouldn't deny that I've thought the daughter
wanted me, and it might be carried through if we took hold of it right.
And, to be sure, it has seemed to me that that would be a piece of good
fortune for a poor lad like me; I could never do better."

"I suppose it's that pale, transparent little thing, that has to go in
out of the wind for fear of getting blown away?"

"Why, she isn't the prettiest that ever was," said Uli; "she's thin and
sickly; but she'll surely get better when she has a husband, the doctor
says; and she'll get fifty thousand."

"Does she still loll around the house, or does she take hold with the
housekeeping?" asked Johannes.

"She doesn't do much work and isn't in the kitchen very often; but she
can knit finely and makes all sorts of pretty things with beads. But if
she gets the farm some time we could afford a cook. If she only looks
after things now and then, she doesn't need to do everything herself,"
said Uli.

"Ye-up, but to look after things you have to know how yourself; it's
foolish to think that if a woman just looks at something, that's all
that's necessary. For instance, a woman can sit all day in a drug-store
with her knitting, but that won't keep the apprentices from doing as
they please. And I thought she looked rather ugly and scowled at a
person instead of giving him a friendly word."

"She does have failings," said Uli, "and is mighty sensitive too. But if
she once has a good husband and has enough to do to keep her busy, so
that she could forget herself now and then, she'd surely improve. Not
that she can't ever be friendly. She can act very prettily at times;
and if the farm's properly worked one can get at least ten thousand
sheaves from it, not counting rye and wheat."

"That's a lot," said Johannes, "and there aren't many more such farms in
the canton. But if you gave me the choice between a good farm and a bad
wife, or neither, I'd take the latter a hundred times over. To be rich
is nice, but riches aren't happiness; and to have a hateful sour woman
at home, that either turns up her nose or bawls at everything, would
make a home for the devil to live in. And if a man has to look for his
pleasure outside his house, he's badly off."

"But master," said Uli, "you always told me to save and be thrifty, and
then I'd be somebody; that the man who had nothing was nothing."

"Quite right, Uli," said the master, "that's what I said and what I
still say. A man is happier when thrifty than when extravagant, and he's
no man if he can't provide for his old age while he's young and single.
If a man doesn't begin well while he's young he'll come to a bad end. A
good lad with some money can marry more easily than a vagabond, and
should look for a good wife; but the richest isn't always the best. Some
women I'd rather take without a farthing than others with a hundred
francs. Everything depends on the person. Do as you will, but consider
it well."

"To be sure, Elsie's a wretched creature," said Uli, "but she can
improve; many a girl has been thin when young, and has grown stout in
old age; and she's not really bad tempered, especially when she's
contented. When she's angry--then, to be sure, she doesn't know just
what she's saying, and throws my position in my face, and twits me about
other girls; but when she's contented again she can be quite amusing,
and has the best heart in the world. She's given me presents, Lord knows
how many, and would have given me lots more if I hadn't kept stopping
her." "Do as you will," said Johannes, "but I tell you again: consider
it well. It seldom turns out well when such different folks come
together, and it has rarely turned out well when a servant has married
his master's daughter. I set great store by you; to another man I
wouldn't have said so much. Now I must go home; come and see us some
time when you have the leisure; then we'll talk the matter over some
more, if it's not too late."

Uli looked discontentedly after his master. "I shouldn't have thought,"
he reflected, "that he would grudge me my good fortune. But that's the
way with these cursed farmers; they're all alike; they don't want to see
a servant get hold of a farm. Johannes is one of the best of 'em; but he
can't stand it either to see his servant get to be richer than he is and
own a finer farm. Why else should it have mattered to him whether
Elsie's pretty or ugly? He didn't just lookout for a pretty one when he
married. They seem to think it's almost a sin when the like of us thinks
of a farmer's daughter, and still many a one might be glad if she got a
mannerly servant for a husband and didn't have to live like a dog on the
farm all her life." But he said to himself that he wouldn't let himself
be dissuaded so easily; the thing had gone on too long and there had
been too much talk about it for him to back out that way. But the affair
must be brought to a conclusion, he thought; he wanted to know where he
stood, once and for all; he was tired of hanging between door and hinge.
He'd tell Elsie that she must speak with her parents; by autumn the
banns must be published, or he'd leave at Christmas; he wouldn't be made
a fool of any longer.




CHAPTER XXI

HOW A TRIP TO A WATERING-PLACE SAILS THROUGH A CALCULATION


[Elsie and her mother go to spend a week at the Gurnigel, a fashionable
resort, leaving a heavenly peace behind them. Elsie attracts
extraordinary attention with her clothes, and is too stupid to
understand that she is being ridiculed to her face. At the same time her
hundred thousand francs dowry are not to be sneezed at, and these lure a
bird of prey in the shape of a cotton-dealer, who takes mother and
daughter off for a drive, and, making good use of his opportunity,
carries his point by storm. Elsie is in the seventh heaven, her mother
not quite so overjoyed.]




CHAPTER XXII

OF INWARD CONFLICTS, WHICH ARE TO BE ENDED BY AN ENGAGEMENT


[Joggeli will not hear to the affair, fearing to lose Uli. Freneli
chides Elsie for breaking her promise to Uli, and the latter is at first
completely stunned, overwhelmed with chagrin, rage, and disappointment.
He is only saved from some act of rash folly by Freneli, who counsels
him to put the mockers off the track by pretending utter indifference.
The cotton-dealer loses no time in coming in state to secure his prize;
Joggeli is quite overcome by his smooth tongue, but requests a fortnight
for deliberation with his son and others.]




CHAPTER XXIII

OF SUBSEQUENT EMBARRASSMENTS WHICH RESULT FROM THE ENGAGEMENT


[Uli's behavior staggers the gossips, but his assumed indifference soon
becomes genuine; none the less, he is resolved to give up his place at
Christmas. Johannes and Trinette are both beside themselves; the reports
about the prospective son-in-law are conflicting and doubtful. But Elsie
is so wild, and the cotton-dealer so persuasive, that the parents
finally give reluctant consent to the marriage. Elsie constantly accuses
Freneli of flirting with her husband, who is not insensible to Freneli's
beauty and charm; she resolves to leave Slough Farm also, since Elsie is
no longer to be controlled and Freneli is subjected to her unbridled
temper. The old mistress is in utter consternation at the imminent loss
of her two best helpers, Uli and Freneli; and new sorrow comes to her
through the son-in-law, who guts the house of its stores on pretense of
putting the money out at interest, and keeps a hawk's eye on all her
housekeeping.]



CHAPTER XXIV

OF ANOTHER TRIP, WHICH DOES NOT DESTROY A CALCULATION, BUT UNEXPECTEDLY
CONCLUDES ONE


ALL this weighed on the good mother's mind, and when she reflected that
Uli and Freneli would both leave besides, that her son-in-law would then
get the reins wholly into his hands, that she would have to run the
house on nothing, be stingy to the poor, and be held accountable for
every cup of flour and for every cake she baked, such a feeling of
misery came over her that she had to sit down and cry, shedding tears
enough to wash her hands in, until even Joggeli came out and told her
not to cry so--that everybody would hear her and would wonder what was
the matter.

What he had said, she answered, didn't amount to anything; she knew that
he had to talk at times. And Freneli also comforted her, telling her not
to take it so hard; things always turned out better than one expected.
But she shook her head and bade them let her alone; she would have to
compose herself--talking was no use. For many days following she sought
composure. They saw her going about silently as if she were revolving
grave things in her mind, or sitting apart now and then when she thought
herself unnoticed, her hands in her lap, and picking up from time to
time the tip of her apron and wiping her eyes with the wrong side of it.
Finally her spirits became lighter; the state of uncertainty seemed to
leave her; she said she felt much better, but she thought she'd like to
go away somewhere; she had such an unsatisfied longing, and she believed
she'd get over it if she could get away for a day or two. This time
Joggeli had no objection; his old wife had made even him anxious. She
could go either to her son or her daughter, whichever she wished! Uli
would drive her, for he had plenty of time now, said he.

No, she didn't want to go there, she said; there was everlasting
quarreling there, and even if she filled her pockets with thalers, she
wouldn't have enough. She thought she'd like to visit cousin Johannes;
they had long promised him a visit, but hadn't kept the promise and she
had never been there. She would see a new road and an unfamiliar
country, and could perhaps best forget what was grieving her. She wanted
to take Freneli along; she too hadn't been away for a long time. They
hadn't taken her with them to Elsie's wedding, and it was only fair to
give the girl a pleasure once in a while.

To the latter plan Joggeli had many objections; but this time he gave in
for his old wife's sake and agreed to get along for a couple of days. In
a glory of color the withered leaves hung on the trees, in the gleam of
their own after-glow; below them, in cheerful green, lay the young
crops, and played merrily with the winking dew-drops that clung to their
tips; and over everything the sky spread itself, mysterious and
fragrant, the impenetrable source of God's wonders. Black crows were
flying across the fields; green woodpeckers hung on the trees; fleet
squirrels ran across the road and, hastily gaining a branch, peeped out
curiously at the passing travelers, while high in the air the snow-geese
sailed on toward a, warmer country in their well-ordered triangle, and
their strange travel-song floated strangely down from their lofty
height.

The mother's judicious eyes roved actively over the whole scene; there
was no end to her comments, and she and Uli exchanged many a shrewd
remark. Especially when they drove through the villages did the
noteworthy things become legion, and there were few houses that did not
offer her opportunity for comment. To sit at home all the time was no
use, said she; one always kept seeing the same things. One ought to
drive around the country from time to time; then one could not merely
gratify his curiosity, but learn a lot too. Folks didn't do things
everywhere alike, and in some places they did better than in others, and
so one could always pick and choose the best. They had not driven much
more than, two hours when she began to suggest that they must give
Blackie something to eat. He was not used to running so long, and they
must bring him home in good condition. "You stop at the next
public-house," she said in response to Uli's objections, "and see if he
won't eat a measure of oats. I'd just as soon have something myself; I'm
actually beginning to be cold."

Arrived there, she said to Uli, "When the horse has his oats, come in."
In the doorway she again turned around and cried, "Do you hear? Come in
then." After the hostess having wiped off the benches in the tavern with
her apron, had asked, "What can I bring you?" and a good bottle and some
tea had been ordered, the women sat down, looked around the room, made
their comments in a low voice, and wondered that it was no later by this
clock. But Uli had probably driven fast; one could see that he had been
in a hurry to get there. When finally the order was brought with the
excuse that it had taken a long time because the water had not been hot
and the wood had refused to burn, the mother told Freneli to call Uli;
she didn't see why he didn't come; she had told him twice. When he had
come and had drunk their health sufficiently, the hostess tried to begin
a conversation, saying that another wedding party had stopped in there
today. The mother laughed out heartily, and Uli was amused too; but
Freneli grew red and angry and remarked that not all the parties on the
road today were wedding parties; that other folks, she supposed, had the
right to go driving on Saturday, too; the road wasn't reserved for
wedding parties.--She shouldn't get so angry, said the hostess; she
didn't know her, but it seemed to her that the young folks were just
right for each other; she hadn't seen such a handsome couple for a long
time. The mother appeased the hostess, saying that she needn't excuse
herself so much; they had had a great laugh about it at home, and had
thought that's the way it would be, and then too the girl had got so
angry.

"It's not nice of you, auntie, to help torment me," said Freneli; "if I
had known this I shouldn't have come along."

"Why, nobody's tormenting you," said her aunt laughing. "Don't be so
silly; many a girl would be tickled to be taken for a bride."

"That doesn't tickle me," said Freneli, "and if I'm not let alone, I'll
go home this minute."

"Why, you can't tie up people's mouths, and you ought to be glad that
they haven't anything worse to say about you," answered her aunt.

"It's bad enough, if folks marry me off to a man that I don't want and
that doesn't want me."

Freneli would have continued indefinitely if they had not hitched up and
driven on. They advanced rapidly. Uli had much to tell as to who owned
this house or that field. As he saw the first of Johannes' fields, his
heart laughed within him. All that he had formerly done there came back
to him; from a distance he pointed everything out, and praised its good
qualities. Then came another field and still another, and they were
driving up to the house before they knew it. Johannes' people were busy
putting up sauerkraut in the front shed; the whole household was
gathered there. All raised their heads as the unexpected little wagon
came along. At first the strangers were not recognized; then the cry
arose: "It's Uli, it's Uli," and the children sprang down from the
porch; then Johannes said, "Cousin Joggeli's wife is with him! What the
dickens has got into her? What does she want?"

He and his wife now stepped forward and reached up their hands in
welcome, and his wife said, "God bless you, Uli, are you bringing your
wife with you?"

Then the mistress laughed heartily again, and said, "There you have it,
whether you will or no; that's the way it is; why, everybody says so."

"Everywhere they take us for a wedding party," explained Uli, "because
we're driving along on Saturday, when so many folks get married."

"Ho, and not only that," said Johannes, "but it strikes me that you
wouldn't make a bad couple."

"You hear, Freneli," said her aunt, "Johannes says so too; there's no
use fighting it any more."

With Freneli tears had been contending with smiles, anger with jest;
finally she gained the mastery over herself, so as not to make a scene
before strangers, and replied, "I've always heard that if there was to
be a marriage, two people had to want it; but in this case nobody wants
it, and so I don't see how anything is to come of it."

"What isn't, can be," said Johannes' wife; "such things often come
unexpectedly."

"I don't feel any traces of it," said Freneli, but then broke off and
held out her hand again, saying how bold it had been of her to go along;
but her aunt had wished it, and she could make the excuses if they were
put to expense.

"I'm very glad you've come," said the housewife, and urgently bade them
come in, although the visitors, said they would not keep her from her
work, but would stay outside, it was so nice and pleasant in the open.
But, protest as they might that they needed nothing and had just eaten,
a fire was made and only by a thrice repeated trip to the kitchen could
a, formal meal be prevented, and hospitality reduced to a pot of coffee.
Freneli had soon made friends with the oldest daughter, who had grown
from an active child into a beautiful young girl, and had to inspect all
her treasures. Out of due respect, Uli soon withdrew, and the older
people were left alone.

Finally, with a heavy sigh, Uli's mistress began the conversation,
saying that she'd have to come out with the reason for her journey; she
hadn't known any better place to go for advice and help than just here.
Johannes had so often helped 'em that she thought he wouldn't leave 'em
in the lurch this time either. Everything had gone so well with 'em that
it had been a real pleasure. To be sure, Uli had got Elsie into his head
for awhile; but the girl herself had been to blame for that, and she
thought Uli had seen in the end that she was no suitable match for him.
Then misfortune had taken them to the Gurnigel, and there Elsie had
picked up a husband, and since then everything had been ruined. Her
Johannes was carrying on; her son-in-law wasn't as he should be, but
poked his nose into everything and thought she ought not to spend
anything more in her housekeeping. Elsie was always quarreling with
Freneli, and Freneli was going to leave on account of it; Uli too;
everything came on her, and she didn't know for the life of her what to
do; many a night she hadn't closed an eye and just cried and cried
because such misfortune had come to her in her old age. Then an idea had
come to her; surely no sensible person could make any objection if they
should lease out their farm, and that would take the load off her. And
then she had thought that they couldn't possibly get a better tenant
than Uli, who'd look after everything for them and was good and honest;
and Uli could make his fortune there, too, for he shouldn't be treated
badly, she would see to that; it would be his profit as well as theirs.

"That's all well and good," said Johannes; "but don't be angry, cousin,
only I must ask whether you think that every one will consent? There's a
lot of folks have to have their say in this, if it's to be done. What
will your folks say? Joggeli's awfully queer sometimes. And your
children will put in their oar too and want to make the farming as
profitable as possible. Uli has a risky undertaking. A single bad year,
with sickness of the stock or the like, can ruin him. On such a farm a
thousand francs more or less in earnings can scarcely be seen, whereas
in a single year four or five thousand can be lost."

"Cousin Johannes," said she, "you mustn't think we're such heartless
creatures as to ruin our tenant on account of a single bad year. If we
had the farm, shouldn't we have the bad year ourselves, and why should
the tenant have to stand the loss if it's too dry or too wet? It's our
farm all the time, and how can he avoid it? It's often seemed cruel to
me when the leaseholder always has to pay the same rent, whether or no.
No, cousin, Joggeli's queer, but he's not the worst, and, if everything
else failed, it isn't as if I didn't have something of my own to help
out with."

"No harm intended," said Johannes; "but to do a thing properly one has
to mention everything. I should be awfully glad of it, for your sake and
for Uli's and for my own too; for I set some store by Uli. It's true
that he's almost as dear to me as my own child, and I won't be stingy if
I can do anything for him. He told me about Elsie, too, and I tried to
talk him out of it. He didn't like it at the time, as I could well see.
I wonder whether he'll say anything about it to me now. Shall I talk to
him about this affair, and try to sound him and see what he thinks, or
shall I talk right out bluntly, or do you want to talk with Joggeli
first?"

"I'd rather be clear about Uli and Freneli, and that's why I came with
'em," said she. "If I talk to Joggeli about it and then find out later
that they're not willing, I'll never hear the last of it and how silly
and stupid I was; you know he's so queer and never gives up a grudge;
and still he's not the worst either. If you're willing, cousin, then
sound Uli and see what he says, drag the secret out of him; I'd like it
very much if I knew where he stands. It seems to me I'd be in heaven if
the business was all fixed up. Don't you like the girl too?" asked his
cousin. And Johannes and his wife praised her highly, saying how pretty
and attractive she was, and the former promised to help as much as he
could.

That evening it was not convenient; there was no opportunity to be alone
with Uli. But the next morning, as soon as they had breakfasted,
Johannes asked Uli if he would go out to the pasture with him; he would
like to show him what he had sowed and ask him about this and that.
Uli's mistress admonished them not to stay too long, for they wanted to
set out in good season so as not to get home too late. While Johannes's
wife was urging her to stay over another night the men strolled away.

It was another beautiful day. One steeple after another proclaimed that
it was the Lord's day, that hearts should open to the Lord and keep
Sabbath with Him, to receive His peace and feel His love. The two
wanderers felt the solemnity of it; over many a field they walked with
little speech. Then they came to the edge of the woods, whence they
could see the valley floating in the wonderful autumn haze and hear the
peal of the bells from many steeples, calling the people together to
take into their open hearts the seed that bears sixty and a hundredfold
on good soil. Silently they sat down there and drew in through the
wide-open gates of their eyes and ears the glorious sermon of the Lord,
which can be heard without words every day in all countries; and in deep
reverence they heard the tones reecho in the sanctuary of their souls.

At last Johannes asked, "You're not going to stay on Slough Farm?"

"No," said Uli. "Not that I'm angry with them about Elsie. I'm glad it
turned out so. Now it's over I can see that I shouldn't have had a happy
hour with her, and that with such an ugly, lazy hussy no amount of money
would make a man happy. I can't understand what I was thinking of. But I
don't want to stay. The son-in-law is always there, wants to start
running things, and swindles the mistress wherever he can, so that I
can't bear to see it; and I won't take orders from him."

"But what do you want?" asked Johannes.

"That's just what I'd like to talk to you about," said Uli. "I could get
places enough; I could go to their son, too, and he'd give me as much
pay as I wanted. But I don't know; being a servant isn't exactly
unsatisfactory, but it seems to me that, if I want to start out for
myself, now's the time. I'm in the thirties, and almost beginning to get
old."

"Oh, that's it!" said Johannes. "Have you got marrying into your head?"

"Not especially," said Uli. "But if I'm going to marry it ought to be
soon, and a man ought to start for himself, too, while he's still
active. But I don't know what to do. I haven't enough for anything worth
while, for what's two thousand francs to make a decent start with? I
keep thinking about what you said, that you can't get the rent out of a
little farm, and that a leaseholder can't very well take over a big
place unless he has money in hand, and still he'll be ruined on a little
one."

"Ho," said Johannes, "two thousand francs is something, and there's
farms here and there with the stock all on 'em, where you can get the
stock too on appraisal, so that you could keep your cash in hand for
your own dealings, and then if you needed more you'd probably find folks
that had money."

"Yes, but they won't give it to me. If a man wants money he's got to
have good security, or guarantors, and where'd he get 'em?"

"Well, Uli," said Johannes, "that's just what I told you: a good name is
good security. Fifteen years ago I wouldn't have lent you fifteen cents;
but today, if you need two or three thousand francs, you can have 'em on
a simple note; or if you want me to indorse your note, just say so. What
are folks in the world for if not to help each other?"

"That's good news," said Uli; "I wouldn't have dared to think of that;
and if I knew of anything, I'd take right hold."

"I wouldn't," said Johannes. "I'd go looking for a wife first, and then
when I had one I'd make my start. Lots of men have been ruined before
now, only because their wives didn't suit their business, or wouldn't.
To carry on a household well, there must be harmony in it. Once you've
got a wife and the two of you choose a place to buy or let that suits
you both, you've gained a lot. Or have you something of the kind under
way?"

"No," said Uli. "I know of one, but she wouldn't take me."

"Why not?" asked Johannes. "Is it another rich farmer's daughter?"

"No," said Uli, "it's the girl that came along today. She hasn't much
money; but whoever gets her is lucky. I've often thought that with her a
man would go farther, even though she hasn't a cent, than with the rich
Elsie. Whatever she takes hold of she does well; she has luck with
everything, and there's nothing she doesn't understand. I don't think
she's ever tired; she's first in the morning and last at night, and
never idle all day. You never have to wait for meals, she never forgets
the maids, and you'd think she couldn't lose her temper; the more there
is to do, the merrier she gets, whereas most people get cross when
they've got a lot to do, and it's no fun to be around. She's thrifty in
everything and yet she's good to the poor, and when anybody gets sick
she can't look after him enough. There's nobody like her far and wide."

"But why shouldn't you get her?" asked Johannes. "Does she hate you?"

"Not exactly," said Uli. "She's nice to me; when she can do me a favor
she never says no, and when she sees that I'd like to have something
done she helps me as much as she can; and she never tries to put
obstacles in the way, like so many women, who, when they see you
absolutely ought to do one thing, absolutely want something else and
hinder you as much as they can. But still she's rather proud, and she
can't forget that she comes of a distinguished family, even if she is
illegitimate. If anybody gets anywhere near her she goes for him as if
she'd eat him, and I wouldn't advise anybody to try to flirt with her
and put hands on her, as is customary in lots of places. More than one
has got a good box from her."

"But that doesn't at all mean that she wouldn't have you," said
Johannes. "If she won't let herself be fingered by everybody, I can't
think any the less of her for it."

"Well, then there's something else," said Uli. "I daren't think of
Freneli any more. Wouldn't she say to me, 'Now that you can't have the
rich one, I'm to be good enough for you, am I? If you could prefer that
green, yellow Elsie to me, then I don't want you now, either; I don't
want a fellow who has gone around sweethearting with such a withered
grass-blade as that.' She's bound to give me that answer. And still I
thought of Freneli more than I did of Elsie all through the affair; only
now I begin to see that I've loved Freneli more and more, and if I had
the girl I'd guarantee to take over a farm and make more on it than
anybody else. But now it's too late; she won't have me; she's awfully
peculiar."

"Ho!" said Johannes, "never lose your courage as long as a girl's
single. They're the queerest sort of ducks and generally do just the
opposite of what you expect. If that's the way it is I'd have a try; the
girl pleases me."

"No, master, I wouldn't ask that girl for a hundred crowns. I know well
enough that it will almost break my heart if I have to go away from her
and can't see her every day any more. But if I asked her and she should
despise me and say no, I think I'd hang myself on the garret ladder. By
the Almighty, I couldn't stand it if another man led her off to church;
I believe I'd shoot him. But she won't marry, she'll stay single."

Then Johannes began to laugh very heartily and asked how he knew that
such a girl, twenty-three years old, would stay single.

[Illustration: IN AMBUSH BENJAMIN VAUTIER]

"Oh," said Uli, "she won't have anybody; I don't know who'd be good
enough for her."

Now Johannes said they had better think about getting home before church
was out; he didn't wish to run into the church-goers. Uli followed him,
speaking little, and what he said was concerned only with Freneli, now
one thing and then another, and he asked Johannes to promise that he
wouldn't let a word that Uli had told him cross his lips. "You
simpleton," said Johannes, "who should I tell?"

Meanwhile Uli's mistress had long since been quivering with impatience,
and as soon as Uli and his old master entered the room she said to him,
"Go up to the room we slept in and see what Freneli's doing. Tell her to
pack up; we want to start out." Uli found the girl standing before a
table, folding up one of her aunt's aprons. He stepped softly up behind
her, put his arm about her quite gently, and said, "Your aunt's in a
hurry." Freneli turned swiftly about, and looked silently up at Uli, as
if surprised at this unwonted familiarity, and the latter asked, "Are
you still angry at me?"

"I've never been angry at you," she replied.

"Then give me a kiss; you've never given me one," answered Uli, and bent
down.

At that instant Freneli twisted away so powerfully that he was driven
back half across the room; and still it seemed to him as if he had got
his kiss; he thought he felt Freneli's lips quite distinctly on one
spot. But the latter waggishly gave him a dressing down, intimating that
she thought he was too old for such tricks, and probably her aunt hadn't
sent him up to take her time with such foolishness. He must think what
Stini, his old sweetheart, would say to it if she came in; she didn't
went to have a wrestling match with her, like Yrsi. At the same time she
laughed so that Uli felt quite crushed and got out as soon as he could.

They were later in setting out than they had expected, for as they were
about to hitch up they had to sit down to a meal for which Johannes's
wife had summoned her whole culinary skill and the entire resources of
her house. Although Uli's mistress kept saying time after time, "Good
heavens, who can eat of every dish?" still there was no end of pressing
them, and she was not left in peace until she declared that she simply
couldn't swallow another thing; if she was to eat another bite, she'd
burst.

While Uli was hitching up she put new coins into the hands of her
cousin's children, although the latter tried to refuse them, and the
parents told her not to go to such expense and admonished the children
not to be so bold as to take them. When they took them just the same and
ran and showed the treasure to their mother, she said, "Oh, what a thing
to do; it makes us ashamed." And then her cousin said it was not worth
talking about, and urged them to come very soon and visit them, and get
back what this visit had cost them. They would surely come, was the
answer; but they shouldn't have hurried so and should have stayed
another day. So amid much talk they finally reached their little wagon
and continued talking as they drove away, Freneli telling her aunt all
that she had noticed, which was indeed not a little; for she had seen
many things of which she said, "If I was younger and could work better
I'd have that too." To all this Uli said nothing, and only paid such
strict attention to his Blackie, which he made trot so sharply that his
mistress finally said, "Uli, is anything the matter with you? Aren't you
driving Blackie too hard? He's not used to running so." Uli excused
himself and received orders to stop when they had gone something more
than halfway. * * *

Without paying attention to the conversation of the two women, Uli drove
to the designated inn. The hostess welcomed them and led them into a
special room, as the mother had desired, after telling Uli to come right
in. Then she ordered wine and a couple of plates with something to eat;
driving had made them hungrier than they would have believed possible.

The order was brought, but Uli was missing. The hostess had been sent
out after him, and came back and said she had told him; but still he did
not come. Then the mistress said, "Go, Freneli, and tell him to come at
once." Freneli hesitated and thought they oughtn't to compel him; if he
was hungry or thirsty he'd come all right. "If you won't go," said her
aunt, "I'll have to go myself." Then Freneli went out in a temper, and
with stinging words drove Uli along, who had been standing in the sulks
by the bowling alley and had at first refused to come. He could stay
where he was, for all of her, she said; but her aunt had ordered it. It
was she that wanted him to come; she herself, Freneli, had no desire to
run after him any more.

Uli came at last, giving little answer to the many reproaches of his
mistress for having to be forced to come. But she filled his glass
heartily, forced him to eat, and kept up a chatter of talk--how well she
had liked it at Cousin Johannes' house, and how she could now see where
Uli had got his training. But he must have been especially good to them,
too, for the children still hung upon him and their parents loved him
almost like a son. "I suppose you'll want to go back to them, when you
leave us."

"No," said Uli.

"It's not customary to ask, to be sure; but will you tell me where you
are going?" asked his mistress.

"I don't know yet," said Uli; "I haven't been in a hurry to take a
place, although I could have had several."

"Well then, stay with us; that's the best thing for both of us; we're
accustomed to each other now."

"I hope you won't take it ill of me," he said; "but I don't intend to be
a servant any more."

"Have you something else?" she asked.

"No," he answered.

"Well, if you don't want to be a servant any more, suppose we make you
tenant on our farm."

This speech affected Uli like a sudden blow. He dropped his mutton-laden
fork on his plate, but kept his mouth open, turned his saucer eyes upon
his mistress and stared at her as if she had come down from the moon.
Freneli, who had been standing at the window, vexed at Uli's slow
eating, turned swiftly about and opened eyes and ears to see what would
happen.

"Yes, look at me all you want," said the mistress to Uli; "I mean it
seriously; if you won't stay as servant would you stay as leaseholder?"

"Mistress," said Uli at last, "how should I be able to become your
tenant? I'm not able; I'd have to be lots better off than I am. You're
only making game of me."

"No, Uli, I mean it," said his mistress, "and your not having money
doesn't matter; we could arrange it so that it wouldn't cost you
anything to begin; the whole place is furnished."

"But what do you suppose, mistress," exclaimed Uli; "even if you did
this, who would be my security? A single bad year on such a farm would
ruin me. The place is too big for me."

"Ho, Uli, that can be managed, and we're not such hard-hearted wretches
as to let a tenant that suits us be ruined on account of a single year.
Just say you're willing, and we'll fix all that."

"Well, mistress," said Uli, "even so; but who would look after the
housekeeping for me? There's a lot to do there."

"Ho, take a wife," said she.

"That's easily said," answered Uli; "but where should I find one that
would be the right person for it and that would have me?"

"Don't you know of anybody?" asked the mistress.

At that Uli's voice stuck in his throat, and hesitating and embarrassed,
he poked around on his plate with his fork. But Freneli said quickly
that it seemed to her it was time to go, for Blackie must have eaten his
oats long ago and Uli had probably had enough by this time; they, could
continue their jokes another day.

Without listening to these words her aunt finally said, "Don't you know
of anybody? For I do."

Again Uli turned saucer eyes upon her; Freneli said she was curious too.
Her aunt, with undisturbed, playful ease, one hand on the table, her
broad back rested comfortably against her chair, said, "Give a guess;
you know her." Uli looked around at the walls; he could not find the
right word; he felt as if he had a whole bagful of mashed potatoes in
his mouth. Freneli tripped up impatiently behind her aunt, remarking
that they ought to start out, as it was getting dark. Her aunt, however,
did not listen to Freneli, but went on, "Can't you think of her? You
know her well. She's a hard-working girl, but acts up a little at times,
and if you don't quarrel you can have a very good life together."
Thereupon she laughed very heartily, and looked first at one and then
the other.

Then Uli looked up; but before he had gulped out an answer Freneli
intervened, and said, "Go and hitch up; Auntie, one can carry a joke too
far, too. I wish I'd never gone along. I don't know why I can't be left
in peace. Yesterday other folks made me angry, and today you're worse
still. That's not kind, Auntie."

Uli had stood up to go out; but his mistress said, "Sit down and listen.
I'm in earnest; I've said to Joggeli many a time that there never were
two people better fitted for each other than you two; it was as if you'd
grown up for each other."

"But Auntie," cried Freneli, "for goodness gracious sake, do stop, or
I'll run away. I won't be auctioned off like a cow. Wait till Christmas;
then I'll get out of your sight, or even before, if I'm so displeasing
to you. Why do you take so much useless pains to bring two people
together that don't want each other? Uli cares for me just as much as I
do for him, and the sooner we part company the gladder I'll be."

But now Uli's tongue was loosened and he said, "Freneli, don't be so
angry with me; I can't help this. But this much let me tell you; even if
you do hate me, I've loved you this long time, and wouldn't want a
better wife. Any one would be happy with you; if you'll have me, I'd be
only too happy."

"Oh, ho!" said Freneli, "now that you hear about the farm and that you'd
get it in lease if you had a wife, all at once I'll just suit you.
You're a cheerful fellow! If you only got the farm you'd marry a hussy
from the gutter, or a fence-post, wouldn't you? But oh, ho ho!" she
laughed scornfully, "you've struck the wrong girl; I don't have to have
a husband; I don't want any, and least of all a man that would marry a
lamp-wick if there was a little oil on it. If you won't start off I'll
walk home alone," and with that she was about to dart out of the door.

But Uli caught her and held her with a strong arm, resist as she would,
saying, "No, truly, Freneli, you wrong me. If I could have you, I'd go
out into the wilderness, where I'd have to clear the whole land before I
could plant it. It's true that when Elsie flirted so with me, the farm
went to my head and I'd have married her just on that account. But I'd
have committed a heavy sin; for even then you were in my heart, and I
always liked to see you a hundred times better than her. Every time I
saw her I was frightened; but when I met you my heart always jumped for
joy. Just ask Johannes; I told him this morning that I didn't know where
under the sun I could find a better wife than you."

"Let me go," cried Freneli, who had carried on like an angry cat during
all this handsome speech and had not even refrained from pinching and
scratching.

"I'll let you go," said Uli, who manfully bore the scratching and
pinching; "but you mustn't suspect me of wanting you only in case I
could be tenant on the farm. You must believe that I love you anyway."

"I make no promises," cried Freneli, and she pulled herself free with
all her might, and fled to the other end of the table.

"Why, you act just like a wild-cat," cried her aunt. "I never saw such a
girl. But now be sensible, come and sit down beside me. Will you come or
not? I'll never say another kind word to you as long as I live if you
won't sit down here a minute and keep still. Uli, order another bottle.
Keep still now, girl, and don't interrupt me," continued her aunt, and
she went on to tell how she should feel if they both went away; what
evil days awaited her; shed painful tears over her own children, and
said that she could still be made happy if it might turn out as she had
thought it through in her sleepless nights. If two people could be happy
together, they were the ones. She had often told Joggeli that she had
never seen two people that understood each other so well in their work
and were so helpful to each other. If they kept on in the same way they
must become very prosperous. They would do whatever they could to help
them, she and Joggeli. They weren't like some proprietors, who weren't
happy unless a tenant was ruined on their place every other year, and
who spent sleepless nights planning to raise the rent when the tenant
was able to pay the whole amount on time, because they were afraid he
had got it too cheap. Truly, they'd do by her as by their own children,
and Freneli would have a dowry that no farmer's daughter need be ashamed
of. But if that didn't suit her and Freneli carried on so, then she
didn't know what to do; she'd rather never go home again. She wouldn't
reproach her; but she surely hadn't deserved to have Freneli act so now;
she had always done by her as she thought right. And now Freneli was
behaving in this way just to grieve her--that she could see; she hadn't
been the same to her for a long time. And the good woman wept right
heartily.

"But, Auntie," said Freneli, "how can you talk so? You've been a mother
to me; I've always looked on you as such, and if I had to go through
fire for you I wouldn't hesitate a minute. But I won't be forced upon
such a puppy who doesn't want me. If I have to have a husband I want one
who loves me and takes me for my own sake, not one that takes me along
with the other cows as part of the lease."

"How can you talk so?" asked her aunt. "Didn't you hear him say he's
loved you this long time?"

"Yes," said Freneli, "that's what they all say, one with another; but if
they all choked on that lie there wouldn't be many weddings. He's no
better than the rest, I guess; if you hadn't talked about the farm
first, then you could have seen how much he'd have been in love with me.
And it's not right of you to tell me nothing about all this, or to fling
me plumb at his head like a pine-cone thrown to a sow. If you'd confided
in me first I could have told you what's trumps with Uli. What he says
is: 'Gold, I love you;' and then he expects us to hear: 'Girl, I love
you.'"

"You're a queer Jenny," said her aunt, "and you act as if you was the
daughter of a lord."

"That's just it, Auntie! Just because I'm only a poor girl, it's proper
for me to hold myself high and not let myself be treated like a handful
of fodder. I think I have more right to it than many a high-born girl,
no matter whether she's the daughter of a lord or a farmer."

"But, Freneli," protested Uli, "how can I change that, and do I have to
pay for it? You know well in your heart that I love you, and I knew just
as little of what your aunt had in mind as you; and so it's not right of
you to vent your anger on me."

"Ah," said Freneli, "now I begin to see that the whole thing was a
put-up job; otherwise you wouldn't excuse yourself before I accused you.
That's worse than ever, and I won't listen to another word; I won't let
myself be caught like a fish in a net."

With that Freneli again tried to get up and run out; but her aunt held
her fast by her bodice, saying that she was the wildest and most
suspicious creature under the sun. Since when did she set traps for her?
It was true that she had wanted to visit her cousin about this affair,
and for that reason she had taken them both along. But what she had in
mind nobody knew, not even Joggeli, much less Uli. She had commissioned
her cousin to worm Uli's secrets out of him, and it was true that Uli
had praised Freneli to the skies, so that her cousin had told her that
Uli would take Freneli any time--the sooner the better; but that Uli was
afraid to say anything to Freneli for fear she'd hold up Elsie against
him. At that she had thought that she would speak, if Uli was afraid to;
for that Uli didn't suit the girl, nobody could convince her; her eyes
weren't in the back of her head yet. So Uli couldn't help it at all.

"But then why did he come into the room today while I was packing up and
want to give me a kiss? He never did that before."

"Oh," said Uli, "I'll just tell you. After I had talked with old master
today you were in my mind more than ever, and I thought I'd give
everything I had if I knew whether you loved me and would have me. I
didn't know a thing about the farm. Then when I found you alone,
something came over me, I didn't know what; I felt a sort of longing in
my arm; I had to touch you and ask for a kiss. At first I thought I had
had one; but then later I thought it couldn't have been, or else you;
wouldn't have pushed me out into the room so wildly. I thought you
didn't care for me, and that made me so sad at heart that I wished
Christmas was here and I could go away; indeed I was going far, far away
down into Italy, so that nobody would ever hear anything of me. And I
feel so still, Freneli, if you won't have me. I don't want the lease,
and I'll go away and away, as far as my feet will carry me, and no one
shall ever know where I've gone."

He had stood up and stepped up to Freneli, and tears stood in his honest
eyes; while they were rolling down her aunt's cheeks. Then Freneli looked
up at him and her eyes grew moist, though mockery and defiance still
quivered about her mouth; but the repressed love broke through and began
to send its shining rays out of her eyes, while her maidenly reluctance
cast up her lips as bulwark against her surrender to his manly insistence.
And while her eyes radiated love, still there came forth from behind the
pouting lips the mocking words: "But, Uli, what will Stini say, if you're
after another girl so soon? Won't she sing to you:

    'A dove-cot would be just as true:
    It's off with the old love, on with the new.'"

"But how can you play the fool with him so?" queried her aunt; "you see
he's in earnest. If I was in his place I'd turn my back on you and tell
you to whistle for me if you wanted me."

"He's free to do it, Auntie, and you don't know but I wish he would,"
said Freneli.

"No you don't," retorted her aunt; "I can hear that in your voice. And
Uli, if you're not a stupid, you'll put your arms around her this
minute; she won't shove you out into the room now, trust me."

But her aunt was mistaken. Once more the girl summoned all her strength,
and whirled about so sharply that she almost shook off Uli again. But
her strength did not hold out. She fell on Uli's breast and broke out in
loud, almost convulsive weeping. The two others almost became
frightened, as her sobbing seemed to have no end; they did not
understand what was the matter. Uli comforted her as well as he could,
and begged her not to go on so: if she'd rather not have him, he could
go away, he wouldn't torment her. Her aunt was vexed at first and told
her she was silly; that in her day girls hadn't put a hound to shame
with their howling when they found a sweetheart. But then she became
alarmed and said she wouldn't force the girl; if she was unwilling to
have Uli she could do what she liked for all of her. Only for goodness
sake she shouldn't go on so; the innkeepers might wonder what was
happening.

Finally Freneli recovered enough to tell them just to leave her in
peace; that she would try to compose herself. She had been a poor orphan
all her life, and an outcast from childhood. No father had ever taken
her on his lap, no mother ever kissed her; never had she had a breast to
lay her head on. She had often thought it wouldn't be hard even to die,
if only she could sit on somebody's lap and clasp somebody around the
neck; but during all her childhood nobody had loved her, and she had had
no home. She couldn't say how often she had wept alone. Her longing had
always and always been to have somebody that she could love with all her
heart and all her soul; to find somebody on whose breast she could hide
her head at all times. She had never found a chum to satisfy her
longing. And so when folks talked to her about marrying, she had thought
she never would unless she could believe from the bottom of her heart
that she had found the breast on which to lay her head in joy and
sorrow, and which would be true to her in life and death. But she had
found none that she could have such faith in. She loved Uli, had loved
him long, more than she could say; but this faith in him she hadn't yet
been able to have. And if she was deceived this time, if Uli's love and
loyalty weren't true and genuine, then her last hope would be gone, then
she'd never find the breast she sought, and would have to die unhappy.
That was why she was so afraid, and she begged them on her knees to
leave her in peace, so that she could consider thoroughly what was best
for her to do. Oh, they didn't know how a poor orphan felt, that had
never sat on her father's lap, or been kissed by her mother!

"You're a dear silly child," said her aunt, wiping her wet cheeks. "If
I'd known that that's what you wanted I certainly wouldn't have grudged
you an extra kiss now and then. But why didn't you say so? A body can't
think of everything; when you have to plan all day long what to give
your folks to eat, you don't stop to think about who's to be kissed."

Uli said he had deserved it; it only served him right, and he ought to
have known that it would be so. But if she could look into his heart
she'd see how much he loved her and how honestly. He wouldn't excuse
himself; he had thought of marrying several times, but never had he
loved any one as he did her. But he wouldn't coerce her; he would simply
have to be content to accept her will in the matter.

"Why, you can just hear," said her aunt, "how much he loves you. Come,
take your glass and drink health to Uli, and promise him that you'll be
the wife of the leaseholder of Slough Farm."

Freneli stood up, took her glass and drank the health, but made no
promise, only begging them to leave her in peace for today, and say no
more about it; tomorrow, if must be, she would give her answer.

"You're a queer Jenny," said her aunt. "Well then, Uli, hitch up; our
folks will wonder where we are."

Outside, the stars were twinkling against the dark-blue background;
small wisps of white mist hovered over the moist meadows; single
streamers rose along the valley slopes; mild breezes rocked the faded
foliage; here and there on the pasture a forgotten cow tinkled her bell
for her forgetful master; here and there a frolicsome lad sent his merry
cry flying over hill and dale. The commotion of the day and the driving
lulled the old woman into deep sleep, and Uli, with tense muscles, held
in the wildly racing Blackie to a moderately fast pace; Freneli was
alone in the wide world. As far off in the distant sky the stars floated
in the limitless space of the unfathomable blue ocean, each by itself in
its solitary course, so she felt herself again to be the poor, solitary,
forsaken girl in the great turmoil of the universe. When she had left
aunt and uncle, when they were dead, she would have no one left on
earth; no house for a refuge in time of sickness; no one to tell her
troubles to; no eye to laugh and weep with her; no person that would
weep when she should die; yes, perhaps no one who would escort her
coffin to that narrow, cold resting-place that they would some day have
to assign her. She was alone; solitary and forsaken she was to wander
through the turmoil of the world to her lonely grave; perhaps a long
journey through many, many lonely years, more bowed, more discouraged
and powerless from year to year--an old, withered, despised creature, to
whom scarce any would give refuge, even though begged for it in the name
of the Lord. New sorrow quivered in her heart, lamentations were about
to well up. Why did the good Father, who was called Love, let such poor
children, who had nobody in the world, live, to be cast out in
childhood, seduced in their prime, despised in old age? But then she
began to feel that she was sinning against God, who had given her more
than many had, who had preserved her innocence to this day, and had so
formed and developed her that an abundant living seemed secured to her
if God preserved her health. Little by little, as the hill-tops and the
tree-tops peeped out of the mist, so the love-tokens which God had
visibly scattered through her life began to appear--how she had been
guarded here and there, how she had enjoyed many more cheerful days than
many, many poor children, and how she had found parents too, much better
than other children had, who, if they had not taken her to their hearts
like father and mother, had still loved her and so brought her up that
she could face all people with the feeling that she was looked upon as a
real human being. No, she might not complain of her good Father up
yonder; she felt that His hand had been over her. And was His hand not
over her still? Had He perhaps taken compassion on the poor lonely girl?
Had He decreed, since she had remained faithful till then and tried to
keep herself unspotted by sin, to satisfy now the longing of her heart,
to give her a faithful breast to lay her head on-something of her own,
so that one day somebody would weep at her death, somebody escort her on
the sad road to the gruesome grave? Was it perhaps Uli, the loyal,
skilful servant, whom she had loved so long in her reserved heart; whom
she could reproach with nothing save his mistake with Elsie, and that he
too had been seized by the delusion that money makes happiness; who had
so faithfully and honestly laid bare his heart and repented of his
error? Was it not a strange dispensation that they had both come to this
particular place, that Uli had not gone away before, that Elsie had had
to marry, that the desire had come to her aunt to give the lease of the
farm to Uli? Was it not wonderful how all that fitted in together; was
not the Father's kind hand evident in it? Should she scorn what was
offered her? Was it something hard or repulsive that was asked of her?
Now her spirit unveiled its pictures, peopled the desolate future with
them. Uli was her husband; she had taken root in life, in the broad
world; they were the centre about which a great household revolved,
circling about their will. In a hundred different forms this picture
rose before her eyes, and ever fairer and lovelier became the harmony of
its colors. She no longer knew that she was driving in the wagon; her
heart felt as light and happy as if she were already breathing the air
of that world where there is no more care, no more sorrow--but just then
the wagon bumped over a stone.

Freneli did not feel it; but her aunt awoke with a long yawn and asked,
finding it hard to collect her thoughts, "Where are we, hey? I haven't
been asleep, I hope."

Uli said, "If you look sharply, you can see our light yonder through the
trees."

"Gracious, how I have slept! I wouldn't have believed it. If only
Joggeli doesn't scold because we're so late."

"It doesn't matter," said Uli; "and Blackie can rest tomorrow; we don't
need him."

"Well, well," said his mistress, "then that's all the better. But when
horses get home late and have to start out early, that's maltreatment.
Just imagine how we'd feel if they did the same to us--run, run all the
time, and no time for eating and sleeping."

As they heard the approaching wagon, all the inhabitants of Slough Farm
rushed out of the doors with candles and lanterns, some to the horse,
others to the wagon; even Joggeli limped up, saying, "I thought you
wouldn't get here today, thought something had happened."




CHAPTER XXV

THE PLOT BEGINS TO UNRAVEL, AND AS IT IS ABOUT TO SNARL AGAIN, A GIRL
KNOCKS OUT THE TANGLE WITH A BEECH CUDGEL


[Freneli's restless eagerness to give Uli her answer banishes sleep, and
she rises before all the others, only to find Uli before her at the
wash-trough, and there they plight their faith. The mistress broaches
the subject of the lease to Joggeli, but he will not hear to it.
Freneli, however, is not disturbed, but outlines the plan of action,
which succeeds admirably. Now comes the son-in-law and makes a scene,
but Freneli trumps his ace by getting word to Johannes, who, already
suspicious of the cotton-dealer, is glad to have a chance to spoke his
wheel for him. A frightful turmoil ensues, with Johannes pounding the
table and threatening the cotton-dealer, while the latter, unterrified,
calmly admits marrying Elsie for her money, and himself draws up a
leasing plan which rather pleases Joggeli, but would exclude Uli. While
the others are arguing about this plan, the son-in-law attempts a
private understanding with Freneli, to the effect that he will further
Uli's cause if she will be complaisant with him. Freneli snatches up a
beech-wood stick and belabors him soundly, while he yells for help, and
finally escapes through an open door. Freneli tells her story; the
son-in-law sticks his head in at the door to say she lies, but the beech
stick, hurled by Freneli's strong hand, strikes him full in the face,
and, minus three teeth, he finally quits the field of battle, completely
routed, strewing the path of his retreat with noisy but vain threats.]




CHAPTER XXVI

HOW FRENELI AND ULI GET OUT AND ARE FINALLY WEDDED


From this point on affairs went much better than Uli had expected, and
many a time he could not but think that he was faring better than he
deserved and was forcibly reminded of what his old master had said--that
a good name was veritable capital and worth more than gold and goods.
The rent was reasonable; but the chief thing was the extras. Some things
that he liked especially, to be sure, Johannes came and seized. That was
only reasonable, he said, to balance up the corn and cherry brandy that
his brother-in-law had talked them out of. The extras included not only
the entire live-stock, utensils and dishes, but also the
house-furnishings and the servants' beds. The appraisal was reasonable
throughout, so that the receiver could not be ruined if the things ever
had to be returned. There were some considerable reservations, but they
could be overlooked in view of the low rent. Uli was to feed one cow for
Joggeli, fatten two hogs, supply potatoes, sow one measure of flax-seed
and two of hemp, and furnish a horse whenever they wanted to drive. If
people are on good terms such reservations are seldom too heavy; but if
misunderstandings arise, then every reservation becomes a
stumbling-block.

Uli and Freneli could save most of their money and needed to buy very
little; the promised dowry did not fail; they received a bed and a
wardrobe as handsome as could be got in all the country round. Johannes,
without waiting for their choice, sent them a handsome cradle, which
Freneli would not admit for a long time, maintaining it was not meant
for them.

So in some anxiety of spirit they saw the time approach when Uli was to
take over the lease, given to him chiefly through confidence in his
ability and loyalty. First, however, he was to be married to Freneli.
Since New Year's there had been talk of it; but the girl always had
excuses for delay. Now she had not had time to think it all over; now
she had just been thinking it over and had decided it was better to wait
another Sunday or two; again she said she wanted to enter on her duties
as mistress immediately after the wedding, and not still be servant; or
else the shoemaker had her Sunday shoes, and she couldn't go on wooden
soles to the pastor to announce the marriage. So passed one Sunday after
another. * * *

Then one Sunday, when the shoemaker had brought the shoes, the dear God
sent a terrible snow-storm, such that no human being could take a dozen
steps with open eyes, and a dark night, the thickest and blackest that
ever was, interposed between heaven and earth. While the storm was at
his height and snow and hail rattled against the windows and piled up a
finger's length against the frames, while the wind whistled mournfully
about the roof, darkness came in at the windows thick and gloomy, so
that the lamp could scarcely prevail against it, the cats crawled
shivering to the back of the stove, and the dog scratched at the kitchen
door and crawled under the stove with his tail between his legs, Freneli
at length said, "Now Uli, get ready and we'll go; now folks certainly
won't be watching us." * * *

When they were ready and opened the kitchen door, Freneli had to make
three attempts before she could get out, and Uli had to look for his hat
on the other side of the kitchen. Her aunt began to wail and to implore
them in God's name not to go; they would be killed! But Freneli summoned
all her strength for a third attempt, and vanished in the snow-flurry; her
aunt's lamentations died away unheard. It was really almost a break-neck
undertaking, and Uli had to help the girl. With the wind directly in their
faces, they often lost the road, had to stand still at times and look
about them to see where they were and gather breath, or turn around to
let the strongest gusts go by; it took them three-quarters of an hour to
go the scant fifteen minutes' walk to the parsonage. There they first
shook off the snow as well as they could, then knocked on the door. But
they knocked long in vain; the sound was swallowed up in the howling of
the wind, which raged awesomely through the chimneys. Then Freneli lost
patience; in place of Uli's reverent knock she now tried her own, and it
was such that the indwellers started up from their seats and the
pastor's wife cried, "Mercy on us, what's that?" But the pastor calmed
her by saying that it was either a baptism or a wedding, only that, as
usual, Mary had not heard their first knocks. While Mary answered the
door he was lighting a light, so that the people need not wait long, and
as soon as Mary opened the door to say, "There's two people here, Sir,"
he was already stepping out.

Back of the house door stood the two, Freneli behind Uli. The pastor,
somewhat short, of middle age, but already venerable in appearance and
with shrewd features that could be either very sharp or very pleasant,
raised the light above his head, peered out with head bowed slightly
forward, and cried at last, "Why, Uli, is it you, in such weather? And I
suppose Freneli's behind you," he said, letting the light fall on her.
"But dear me," he cried, "in such weather? And the good mistress let you
go? Come, Mary," he called, "brush off these folks for me, and take this
collar and dry it." Mary came up very willingly with her lamp.

Now the pastor's wife opened the door, her light in her hand, and said,
"Bring them in here, why don't you? It's warmer than your study, and
Freneli and I know each other right well." There stood Freneli now in
the blaze of three lights, still between Uli and the door, not knowing
what expression to assume. Finally she put a good face on a bad game, as
the saying goes, came forward, and saluted the pastor and his wife quite
properly, saying that her aunt bade her wish them good evening, and
Joggeli too. All this Freneli said with the most innocent face in the
world.

"But," said the pastor, "why do you come in such a storm? You might have
lost your lives!"

"We couldn't manage it any other way," said Uli, who began to feel the
man's duty of taking his wife's obstinacy on his own shoulders--a duty
which one must eventually fulfil of necessity, either to avoid appearing
lien-pecked or to hide the weakness of his wife. "We couldn't wait any
longer," he continued, "as we wanted to ask the pastor to announce the
affair here and there, so that it could be published next Sunday."

They were rather late for that, the pastor said; he didn't know whether
the mail would reach both places before Sunday.

"I am sorry for that," said Uli; "I hadn't thought of it."

Freneli acted as, if she had nothing to do with it, and talked quite
interestedly with the pastor's wife about the flax, which had seemed so
fine and still yielded so little when they combed it. When the
formalities were over the pastor said to Uli, "And so you're to be
tenant on Slough Farm? I'm glad of it. You're not like so many servants,
that don't even look human, to say nothing of Christian; you act like a
man and like a Christian too."

"Yes," said Uli, "why should I forget God? I need Him more than He does
me, and if I forget Him can I hope that He will think of me when He
bestows His gifts and His mercies?"

"Yes, Uli, that's fine," said the pastor, "and I think He has not
forgotten you either. You have a good farm and I think you're getting a
good wife."

Here the maid came in with the plates to set the table. Freneli noticed
it and stood up to go, although the hostess told them not to hurry, or,
better still, to have supper with them. But Freneli said they must go or
her aunt would think something had happened, thanked the pastor and
asked him to promise that he would come to see them, although they were
only leaseholders. They could always give them a cup of coffee, if they
would be satisfied with that. Her heart always rejoiced to see him, even
from a distance. Wishing them happiness and blessing in the holy state
of matrimony, the pastor himself lighted them out with candle held high,
and bade them to wish good evening to aunt and uncle for him. * * *

Nearer, and nearer came the fateful wedding-day. As on the day before
some holy Sunday, when solemn feelings almost irresistibly make their
way into the heart, almost as on the eve of her confirmation, so Freneli
felt on the eve of her wedding. Thoughtfully and seriously she did her
housework; perhaps she had never spoken so little as on that day. At
times she felt like weeping, and still she had a friendly smile for all
she met. Then again she would sink into deep reflection, in which she
forgot place and time and everything; she knew nothing of herself,
nothing of this brooding. Then when some one spoke to her, she would
start up as out of deep sleep; it seemed to her as if she had only just
recovered her eyes and ears, as if she were falling back upon the earth
from another world.

As they were sitting at supper, such an unexpected crash was heard on
the hill near the house that all started up. It was the men and some of
the day-laborers, who wished to proclaim to the world the glory of their
new masters. There lies hidden in this shooting and banging at weddings
a deep significance; the only pity is that so many a human life is
endangered by it. No hateful horn-blowing was heard; no horrible
serenades, such as envy or enmity offer to bridal couples, disturbed the
peaceful evening. * * *

Uli had a bad night. As they wanted to start at three in the morning the
hours for sleep were few, but it seemed as if they would not pass. He
could not sleep; many things busied his thoughts and tossed him
restlessly back and forth, and every thirty seconds he reached for his
watch. The whole importance of what he was now to become rolled itself
upon his soul with its entire weight. Then again lovely pictures danced
before his closed eyes. [Illustration: FIRST DANCING LESSONS _From
the Painting by Benjamin Vautier_] The spirit-hour was not long past
when he left his bed, in order to give the horse his fodder and to brush
and curry him thoroughly. When he had finished this work he went to the
well and began a similar task on himself. Then playful hands enfolded
him and Freneli brought him her loving morning salute. A glad hope had
drawn her to the well, and they lingered to caress each other in the
cold morning air as if mild evening zephyrs were blowing. All anxiety
and oppression forsook him now, and he hastened the preparations for
their departure. Soon he could go into the house for the hot coffee
which Freneli had made and for the white bread and cheese her aunt had
provided. Little peace did the girl have at the table, for the fear of
having forgotten something would not let her rest; again and again she
looked over the bundle of her belongings, and even then her aunt's
fur-lined shoes were nearly left behind. At last she stood there all in
readiness, sweet and beautiful. The two maids, whom curiosity had drawn
from their beds, encircled her with their lights, and were so absorbed
in admiration that they forgot that oil makes spots and that fire
kindles; a little more and Freneli, soaked in oil, would have gone up in
flame. Alas, in the fleshy bosoms of the poor maids heaved the yearning:
Oh, if they once had such pretty clothes, they would be as pretty as
Freneli; and then they too could ride off to be married to such a
handsome man!

Long before three o'clock they drove out into the cold, frosty morning.
Amid question and answer the flickering stars paled and sought their
sky-blue beds, and the good mother sun began to weave golden curtains
about them out of sparkling rays of light, so that their chaste
retirement, their innocent sleep, might not be sullied by the eyes of
curious sinners. Jack Frost shook his curls more mightily; driven by the
sun from the little stars to the dark bosom of the earth, away from his
heavenly sweethearts, he tried to caress earthly ones, wanted to embrace
Freneli and put his cold arms about the warm girl; his white breath was
already playing in the tips of her cap. The girl shivered and begged
Uli to take refuge just a moment in a warm room; she was shaking through
and through, and they would reach their destination soon enough.

It was one of the good old taverns whose proprietors do not change every
year, but where one generation succeeds the other. The innkeepers, who
were just sitting at their coffee as the bridal couple entered,
recognized Uli at once. Now a very friendly salutation, and the couple
must sit down and celebrate with them, whether or no. They were told not
to make a fuss about it, everything was ready, and nothing was more
grateful on such a cold morning than a cup of hot coffee. Freneli acted
somewhat bash-fully, for it seemed bold of her to sit down with them as
if that was her home. But the hostess urged her until she sat down,
surveyed her, and began to praise her to Uli, remarking what a pretty
wife he had; there hadn't been a prettier one there this long time. She
was glad he was doing so well; they had all been sorry when he went
away; one always liked to see a friend get along well. Not that there
weren't folks that couldn't bear to see it, but there weren't many such.

Uli asked whether she thought the pastor was up; he would go to him
first. He surely would be, they thought, especially on a Friday, when
folks usually came. Not that he was one of the earliest risers usually,
for he liked to lie abed; but he was getting old and so that could be
excused. But he had had a vicar during the winter, and he had never been
in sight before eight; everybody had been vexed that they had to have
such a lazy vicar. Here Uli asked whether it was customary to take the
bride along. No, they said; folks seldom waited in the parsonage.
Afterward a good many went back together to get the certificate. But the
bashful ones, or those that thought the pastor would have cause to say
something to them, would come right back to the inn, and only the lads
would go for the certificate. After Freneli had declined to go along and
had bidden Uli to let his master know and send word to have his master
and mistress come, he set out.

In his handsome dress and in the dark room the old pastor did not at
first recognize him, but then was heartily rejoiced. "I heard," he said,
"that you were doing well, were to get a fine lease and a good wife, and
had saved a tidy sum. It gives me great joy to bless a marriage that I
can hope will remain in the Lord. That you have saved something is not
the chief thing; but you wouldn't have it, and people wouldn't have had
so much confidence in you, if you were not honest and God-fearing, and
that's what pleases me most of all. The things of the world and the
things of the spirit are much closer to each other than most people
believe. They think that in order to get along well in the world, you've
got to hang up your Christianity on a nail. But it's just the reverse;
that's what causes the everlasting complaint in the world; that's why
most men make their beds so that they have to lie on nettles. Ask
yourself if you would be as happy now if you had stayed a vagabond,
despised by all. What do you think--what sort of a wedding would you
have had? Just imagine what kind of a wife you would have got, and the
prospects you would have had, and what people would have said when they
saw you going to be married, and then see how it is today; reckon up the
enormous difference. Or what do you think about it? Is blind fortune,
accident, so-called luck, back of it all? Folks are always saying: 'I
don't have any luck; you just can't do anything nowadays.' What do you
think, Uli? Is it only luck? Would you have had this luck if you had
stayed a vagabond? But the misfortune is just that people want to be
happy through luck and not by God-fearing lives on which God's blessing
rests. And so it's quite fitting that those who are only waiting for
luck should be deceived by it, until they come to the knowledge that
nothing depends on luck, but everything on the blessing of God."

"Yes, Your Reverence," said Uli, "I can't tell you how much happier I am
now than when I was one of the rabble that run around the streets. But
something depends on luck, too; for if I hadn't come to such a good
master no good would have come of me."

"Uli, Uli," said the pastor, "was that luck or God's decree?"

"It's all the same, I think," answered Uli.

"Yes," said the pastor, "it is the same; but it's not a matter of
indifference which you call it, as men think, and that's just where the
difference lies. The man that talks of luck doesn't think of God, nor
thank Him, nor seek His grace; he seeks luck of and in the world. He who
speaks of God's providence thinks of Him, thanks Him, seeks to please
Him, sees God's hand in everything; he knows neither bad nor good luck,
but to him everything is God's good guidance, which is to lead him to
blessedness. The different words are the expression of a different state
of mind, a different view of life; that is why there is so much
difference in the words, and it is important which one we use. And
however good our intentions, still, when we talk of luck, it makes us
frivolous or discontented; but if we speak of God's providence, then
these words themselves awaken thoughts in us and direct our eyes to
God."

"Well, yes, Your Reverence," said Uli, "you're about right in that, and
I'll bear it in mind."

"I hope you will come back here with your bride after the service?"

"Very willingly, if you wish it," said Uli; "but I'm afraid we shall
keep you from your work."

"No one does that," said the pastor; "for it is not only my office, but
also my pleasure, to speak on serious occasions a serious word to hearts
in which I can hope for good soil that will bear fruit. What the pastor
says on such occasions is not so soon forgotten."

Meanwhile Freneli had taken off the fur-lined shoes and put on the
proper cap, and with her own hands the hostess had fastened on the
wreath. It was made in the Langental fashion, she said. "But whatever
fashion it is, it's becoming to you," she continued.

The bells began to peal and Freneli's heart to beat loudly; her eyes
grew fairly dim with dizziness. The hostess brought her aromatic salts,
rubbed her temples with something, and said, "You mustn't take it so
hard, girlie, we all have to go through with it. But go now in God's
name; the pastor doesn't wait long on a Friday; he's a great one for
hurrying."

Uli took his Freneli by the hand and walked with her toward the church;
solemnly the solemn peals echoed in their hearts; for the sexton rang
the bells with all his skill, so that the clappers struck on both edges,
and not as if they were lame, now on one edge, now on the other. As they
came to the churchyard, the grave-digger was just busy at a grave, and
it was quiet about him; no sheep, no goat came and desecrated man's last
resting-place; for in this village the churchyard was no pasture for
unclerical animals.

Suddenly an irresistible melancholy came over Freneli. The venerable
mound, the digging of the new grave, woke gloomly thoughts. "That's no
good omen," she whispered; "they are digging a grave for one of us."

Before the church stood a baptismal party, one godmother holding a child
on her arm. "That means a child-bed for one of us," whispered Uli, to
comfort Freneli.

"Yes, that I'm to die in one," she answered; "that I must leave my
happiness for the cold grave."

"Just remember," said Uli, "that the dear God does everything and that
we mustn't be superstitious, but believing. That our graves will be dug
some day is certain; but that digging a grave means death to those who
come along I never heard. Just think how many people see a grave being
dug; if all of them had to follow soon, think what a lot of deaths
there'd be."

"Oh, forgive me," said Freneli; "but the more important a journey is the
more alarmed the poor soul gets and wants to know what will be the
outcome, and so takes every encounter as an omen, bad or good; do you
remember when you did the like?"

Then Uli pressed her hand and said, "You're right; but let us put our
trust in God and not worry. What He shall do to us, or give or take, is
well done."

They entered the church softly and hesitatingly; went separately to left
and right; saw a child taken into the covenant of the Lord; thought how
beautiful it was to be permitted to commend such a tender and feeble
being, body and soul, to the especial care of its Saviour, and how great
a load it must take from the parents' breasts, when they received in the
baptism the assurance that the Lord would be with them and let them feed
the child with His spirit, as the mother fed it with her milk. They
joined very reverently in the prayers, and thought how seriously they
would take it when they should have to promise as godparents to see to
it that a child should be brought to the Lord. The customary collect was
lost upon them in the importance of the serious moment that came nearer
and nearer. When the pastor stepped forward from behind the baptismal
fount, when Uli had taken Freneli by the hand, and they had stepped
forward to the bench, both sank to their knees, far anticipating the
ceremony, held their hands in fervent clasp, and with all their soul and
all their heart and all their strength they prayed and promised what the
words bid them--yes, and much more that gushed forth from their true
hearts. And when they arose, they felt exceedingly firm and cheerful;
both felt that they had won a great treasure for their whole life, which
must make them happy, which none could take from them by force or guile,
and with which they must remain united to all eternity.

When outside, Uli begged his bride to go with him to the pastor, to get
the certificate. Abashed, Freneli tried to decline, under the pretext
that she did not know him, that it was unnecessary, and so on. But she
went none the less, and no longer timorous, like a thief in the night,
but as well becomes a happy woman at the side of an honest man. Freneli
knew how to take herself in hand.

With kindness they were received by the pastor, a venerable, tall, lean
gentleman. There were not many who, like him, knew how to mingle
seriousness and graciousness, so that hearts opened before him as if
touched with a magic wand.

When he had looked at Freneli, he asked, "What do you think, Uli? Was it
due to luck or God's guidance that you got this little wife?"

"Your Reverence," said Uli, "you are right; I think her a gift of God."

"And you, little wife, of what mind are you?"

"I too have no other thought but that the dear God brought us together,"
said Freneli.

"I think so too," said the pastor; "God willed it; never forget that.
But why did He bring you two together? That one should make the other
happy, not only here, but also yonder--don't forget that either.
Marriage is God's sanctuary on earth, in which men are to consecrate and
purify themselves for Heaven. You are good people; be pious and upright;
but you both have faults. In you, Uli, I know one which steadily gains
power over you; it is avarice. You, Freneli, must have some too, but I
do not know them. These faults will appear little by little, and when a
fault becomes visible in you, Uli, your wife will be the first to see
it, and you can tell that by her face; and, on the other hand, you can
see what comes out in Freneli, and she can read it in your expression.
One almost becomes the other's mirror. In this mirror, Uli, you should
recognize your faults, and try to put them from you out of love for your
wife, because she suffers most from them; and you, wife, should assist
him in all gentleness, but should recognize your own faults too and try
to conquer them for Uli's sake, and he will help you too. If this labor
becomes too heavy for love, then God gives us child after child, and
each is an angel come to sanctify us; each brings us new lessons of how
to appear rightly before God, and new desires, to the end that the child
be prepared for a sacrifice that shall be holy and well-pleasing to God.
And the more you live together in this spirit, the happier you shall be
in Heaven and on earth; for, believe me, true worldly happiness and
heavenly happiness are to be found on exactly the same road. Believe me:
the dear God has brought you together to help each other gain Heaven, to
be prop and staff to each other on the narrow, toilsome way that leads
to eternal life, to level and lighten that way for each other through
love, meekness, and long-suffering--for it is rough and thorny. Now when
gloomy days come, when faults break out in one or the other, or both,
then think not of bad luck, as if that made you unhappy, but of the dear
God, who has long seen all these faul